The Ikeja High Court has sentenced an art teacher, Chukwu Ndubuisi, 41, to life imprisonment for defiling a six-year-old pupil of Mind Builders School, Lagos.
Mr Ndubuisi, the school’s art teacher as of June 2016, was first arraigned at an Ogudu Magistrates’ Court on a charge of forceful penetration. He pleaded not guilty.
His case was later transferred to Ikeja High Court before Justice Sedoten Ogunsanya, following the Director of Public Prosecutions (DPP’s) advice.
Mr Ndubuisi was charged before the court on a count charge of child defilement.
Delivering judgement in the matter, Mrs Ogunsanya, citing several authorities, held that the prosecution had proved its case against the defendant beyond a reasonable doubt.
The court said the first time the survivor told her mother of her experience was one day when she discussed the case of a seven-year-old girl who was defiled and killed, which went viral on social media.
She said the survivor whispered to her mother that she wanted to discuss something with her.
The court noted that they went outside, and the survivor narrated her experience to her and pleaded with her mother not to tell her father and brother.
The court noted that the mother told the father, following which they went to her school, but the art teacher was not around.
She said the parents reported the matter at Omole Police station, and the matter was investigated. A test was conducted on the survivor at Ikosi Health centre, which revealed that the survivor was defiled.
She said the matter was later taken up by the Domestic and Sexual Violence Agency (DSVA).
Mrs Ogunsanya held that the account of the survivor and that of her mother were uncontroverted, corroborated each other and gave a good account of the assault.
The court noted that the defendant usually sends the survivor’s friend to call her, that the first time the defendant defiled her was in the female toilet, and the second time was in the art room.
She said the survivor told the court that sometimes her teacher (defendant) asked her to remove her uniform and put his “bumbum” into her “bumbum”.
“At another time, he called her into the art room, he put her on the table, parted her panties and put his thing into my thing”.
She said the survivor told the court that when the defendant is finished, he will clean up the survivor with tissue paper.
The court noted that the defendant had unhindered access to the child and defiled her several times.
Mrs Ogunsanya discountenances the evidence of two prosecution witnesses, who are medical doctors, for being contradictory, pointing out that they did not come as expert witnesses.
She also dismissed the defence witnesses’ submission that the incident was not recorded on the school’s CCTV.
She, therefore, convicted the defendant as charged.
Counsel to the defendant, O.C. Olagunju, pleaded with the court to temper justice with mercy.
He said that no case of improper behaviour had ever been brought against the defendant, nor had he ever had any case at any police station until this case.
But the prosecution, Jubril Kareem, argued that the law under which the defendant was charged does not give the court any discretion.
He urged the court to impose the mandatory sentence stipulated in the law.
Mrs Ogunsanya subsequently sentenced the defendant to life imprisonment.
(NAN)
