Justice Abiola Soladoye of an Ikeja Sexual Offences and Domestic Violence Court on Wednesday sentenced a 35-year-old music teacher and counselor of Lachez O International School, Anthony Okeh, to life imprisonment for defiling a nine-year-old, JSS 1 pupil name withheld).
The judge in her judgment held that the prosecution had successfully discharged the burden of proof of the charge of defilement against Okeh.
According to her, Okeh is a pathological liar, stating that a teacher should not be by having unlawful sexual intercourse with his pupil.
She described him as a soulless man without any iota of shame.
Soladoye said the case was a direct evidence as the survivor was in court to narrate her sexual ordeals in the hands of her music teacher, a sexual predator.
She added that the evidence of the survivor was lucid, cogent, unequivocal and compelling and the denial of the convict did not hold waters.
The judge said: “To the mind of this court, the denial of the defendant is a form to distance himself from the crime.
“The defendant is a pathological liar whose evidence is an after thought and I do not believe him at all.
“I do not believe the other three defence witnesses as well because their evidences are devoid of truth and they are tainted witnesses.
“Cases are not won on the number of witnesses presented to testify before the court but on the quality of evidence adduced that are credible, convincing and compelling.”
The court said that the survivor in her testimony had narrated how the convict called her upstair into the music room, where he showed her different nude pictures, claimed to be a cultist and threatened to kill her if she ever told anyone.
Soladoye said: ” The survivor recognised the man in the box as her music teacher who defiled her more than two times in the music room.
“The testimony of the investigative police officer (IPO) was corroborated by the testimony of the survivor when she said that the mother of the girl noticed her reluctant to go to school and she later confessed to her mother what the defendant had been doing to her.
“The IPO said that the mother of the survivor (nominal complainant) reported the case to the police.
“Statement of the nominal complainant was admitted into evidence.”
The court thereafter convicted Okeh of the one-count charge of defilement and consequently sentenced him to life imprisonment.
Soladoye also ordered that the convict’s name be registered in the Lagos State Sexual Offences Register.
The judge further urged school proprietors and proprietress to recruit teachers with high moral standards to teach in their schools so as to avoid dent on their institutions.
“Furthermore, all stakeholders in the administration of criminal justice must form a strong collaboration in combating sexual violence offences so as to protest the dignity, mental health, physical and psychological trauma of survivors in such cases,” Soladoye said.
State Counsel, Miss Abimbola Abolade presented two witnesses ; the survivor and an investigative police officer while defence called four witnesses.
Abolade told the court that the convict committed the offence on Sept.6, 2022 at Lachez O International School, Agege in Lagos.
The prosecution submitted that the convict had unlawful sexual intercourse with the minor by penetrating her vagina with his penis.
According to the prosecution, the offence contravenes Section 137 of the Criminal Laws of Lagos State, 2015.
