Lagos ‘Beastly’ Paedophile Gets Life Imprisonment for Defiling 11-year-old Girl
The Ikeja Division of the Lagos High Court, presided over by Justice Rahman Oshodi, has sentenced a man, Rasheed Wasiu, to life imprisonment for having sexual intercourse with his neighbour’s eleven-year-old daughter (name withheld).
The judge convicted Wasiu in a defilement suit filed by the Lagos government.
In handing down the judgment, Oshodi, who held that the offence was grave and attracted a mandatory sentence of life imprisonment, insisted that the convicted Wasiu lied during his evidence before the court.
“Notwithstanding the overwhelming evidence against you, you continued to deny your offence. At sentencing, you showed no remorse. The evidence shows that you had sexual intercourse with an eleven-year-old girl,” said the judge.
Oshodi added, “She was your neighbour’s daughter. She was, to your knowledge, a child. You grabbed her in the toilet, pushed her to the wall and had sexual intercourse with her in a beastly manner. This is unacceptable. You must be ashamed and punished according to the mandatory sentence.”
The judge added, “Therefore, the sentence I pass upon you is one of life imprisonment. You shall be registered as a sex offender in the Lagos State Sexual Offenders Register.”
In the charge designated LD/8444C/2018, dated December 7, 2018, the Lagos government accused the convicted Wasiu of defiling the survivor on or about March 9, 2018, at about 8:00 p.m. at the minor’s residence. Wasiu had pleaded not guilty to the charge when he was arraigned on December 10, 2021.
In an earlier arraignment on June 13, 2019, the convict claimed he was elsewhere at the time of the alleged sexual assault.
During the trial, the government called four witnesses to establish its case against the convict, while the defence.
The prosecution had tendered three documents as exhibits, namely, the extrajudicial statement of the survivor who testified as a prosecution witness (PW3), the extrajudicial statement of the survivor’s father who testified as prosecution witness four (PW4), and the defendant’s extrajudicial statement who had testified as defence witness one (DW1).
In his argument, the convict’s counsel, Yusuf Oyebanji, urged the court to discharge and acquit Wasiu because the prosecution was unable to establish his client’s guilt beyond a reasonable doubt and that the defence of alibi deflated the defilement allegation.
But the prosecutor, through its lawyers, B.T. Boye, O. Aluko, and I.D. Solarin, insisted that it produced direct eyewitness and circumstantial evidence to justify the defendant’s conviction for defilement.
Taking a position, the judge who held that in criminal law, the prosecution must establish a crime against the defendant referred to section 135 (1) of the Evidence Act 2011 to state that the standard of proof is beyond reasonable doubt.
“Each element of this crime must be established beyond a reasonable doubt. Any doubt must be resolved in favour of the defendant. The charge of defilement occurs when a person has sexual intercourse with a child. A child cannot consent to sexual activities,” said Oshodi.
The judge added, “In law, where a witness testifies on a material fact in controversy, in this case, whether the prosecutrix was a child, and the defence does not cross-examine the witnesses on this point, I can consider the silence as acceptance that the defendant does not dispute the fact.
He explained that there “is consistent evidence that the prosecutrix (PW3) was 11 as of March 2018, when the events” that led to this prosecution occurred, stressing, “I have accepted this as accurate.”