A dismissed police officer, Mohammed Alidu, has been handed a life sentence by an Ikeja Domestic Violence and Sexual Offences Court on Monday, May 23, for s3xually assaulting a 9-year-old daughter of a policewoman.
According to the prosecution team, Mr Olusola Soneye, Mrs Olufunke Adegoke and Ms Abimbola Abolade, Alidu committed the offence on June 29, 2018 on Makinde Police Barracks Road, Mafoluku, Oshodi.
The prosecution said that Alidu grabbed the survivor into a wooden house on her way to school and d*filed her.
They submitted that the defendant was apprehended after the survivor reported the case at the police station.
The prosecutors said the defendant confessed to defiling the survivor, blaming it on the devil but later denied it as an afterthought.
The prosecutors said the offence contravened Sections 137 of the Criminal Laws of Lagos State, 2015.
Justice Abiola Soladoye, in her judgment, held that Alidu was a disgrace to the police because he failed to uphold law and order and went about frolicking with an underage girl.
Soladoye held that the prosecution had convincingly proved the charge of defilement against the convict beyond any reasonable doubt.
She said the survivors’ evidence was fully corroborated by the medical evidence.
“The evidence of the survivor is the most credible evidence in identifying the perpetrator. The vivid and oral testimony of the survivor satisfies the court that prosecution has proved every inch of the ingredients,” Justice Soladoye said.
“He is a disgrace to the entire Police because he failed to uphold law and order as he went on a frolic of his own by engaging in a bizarre and irresponsible behaviour turning the barracks into a s3x den.
“It is most chilling. The defendant is hereby sentenced to life imprisonment without the option of fine.
“He should have his name entered in the Sex Offenders Register of the Lagos State Government,
” the judge held.
The News Agency of Nigeria (NAN) reports that four witnesses testified against Alidu in the trial including mother of the victim.
According to the victim’s mother, Alidu accosted her daughter on her way home from school, dragged her into his apartment and d*filed her.
“We live at Makinde Barracks, Mafoluku, Oshodi, Lagos. On June 29, 2018, I was at work when my husband, who was out of Lagos, called to inform me that Sgt. Mohammed had d*filed our daughter,” she told the court.
“I went to the police station which is within the same compound of the barracks and my daughter was there. My daughter told me that when she was coming back from school, Mohammed called her but she ignored him
“She said he forcefully took her to his apartment, put her on a bed, tore her underwear and d*filed her.”
The policewoman said her daughter was taken to the Mirabel Centre (a sexual assault referral centre) for medical examination, and doctors confirmed that she had been d*filed.
