An Ikeja High Court has sentenced one Richard Saviour to life imprisonment for sexually assaulting his wife’s niece and infecting her with the Human Immunodeficiency Virus (HIV).
The victim (name withheld) was aged 14.
According to a report by the News Agency of Nigeria (NAN), the State Counsel, Mr. Ola Azeez, during the trial, called three witnesses to prove the prosecution’s case while the convict testified in his own defense.
Delivering judgment on the case on Tuesday, Justice Oyindamola Ogala held that the evidence provided by all the prosecution witnesses were corroborated and considered as the truth.
Ogala said that the evidence of the victim were corroborated by the Investigating Police Officer (PW1) and Social Worker from the state Ministry of Youth and Social Welfare (PW3).
According to her, these established the offence of defilement against the convict.
She said: “The testimony before the court clearly depicts the ‘evil’ perpetrated on this young girl and how she was abused both mentally and physically by the defendant and his wife for years.
“Revealing how she indeed ‘cried out’ for help and was betrayed by those who were supposed to help and support her.
“It is imperative to state at this juncture that the actions of the principal of PW2’s school and the social worker (PW3) are commendable as same eventually brought some succor and relief to PW2, who unfortunately has been permanently ‘scared’.
“Having carefully considered the entirety of facts before the court, it finds that in this instance, the prosecution has satisfactorily proved the one count information the defendant stands faced with.”
Ogala said that the mien of the defendant was desperate to distance himself from the allegation by denying the offences.
She said that again, PW2 succinctly narrated what she stated had transpired between herself and the defendant, which the defendant denied.
“The defendant, in his evidence before the court, indeed narrated how PW2 (the survivor) had at one instance, after running from home to avoid a beating from his wife, ran to the station, and he was subsequently informed that PW2 accused him of molesting her.
“The court finds that the totality of the testimony of the defendant who testified in his defence calling no additional witness is in essence a denial of the allegation without more.
“He offered no reliable explanations to the charge aside attempts to depict PW2 as a stubborn girl and one who stole from himself and his wife,” she added.
The judge said that when the police took the victim to the Mirrabel Centre, she was tested and found to be HIV positive.
Thereafter, she was transferred to Mary’s Home Orphanage and looked after with the help of Positive Action for Treatment Access, a Non Governmental Organisation.
According to the judge, the Mirabel Centre record of PW2’s genital findings is that her hymen was absent with slight whitish vaginal discharge and concluded that the finding is consistent with repeated vaginal penetration, which lends credence to the facts stated by PW2.
The judge, hence, convicted the defendant on the charge of defilement by unlawful sexual assault and sentenced him to life imprisonment in the Correctional centre.
