A businesswoman (name withheld), on Monday, told the Sexual Offences and Domestic Violence Court sitting in Ikeja, Lagos State how a pastor, Chris Mcdouglas, allegedly defiled her 17-year-old daughter.
Mcdouglas, a pastor at Peculiar Generation Assembly Church in Lagos, is facing a nine-count-charge bordering on defilement and sexual assault by penetration.
He, however, pleaded “not guilty” to the charge.
The businesswoman, who is the mother of the alleged victim, was led in evidence by the state Director of Public Prosecutions, Dr Babajide Martins.
She testified that the defendant had a sexual intercourse with her daughter on different occasions from 2017 to 2020 in the guise of taking her out for gospel ministration.
The witness told the court that the defendant had sex with the survivor at the back of his church, in different hotels, and in her house.
The businesswoman disclosed that the pastor cried when she confronted him for defiling her daughter and he blamed it on the devil.
She said: “Pastor Mcdouglas would come to my house and ask my daughter to follow him for ministration so as to use her talent as a chorister to bless others.
“According to my daughter, he would branch to a hotel and have sex with her.
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“When I confronted him with some leaders in the church, he said he was deceived by the devil and told me to forgive him.”
The witness said she recorded her conversations with the pastor and his alleged confession on her phone.
“The pastor, who I trusted so much with my family and see as my spiritual father, had sex with my daughter.
“My daughter told me that Pastor Mcdouglas would sneak into the house while I was not around, cover the curtains, cover her mouth, and force himself on her,” she added.
The witness further told the court that the alleged sexual encounter with the defendant had plunged the survivor into depression, making her to faint occasionally.
She told the court that each time her daughter fainted, the defendant would come and pray for her and request that she should give an offering.
“I used my salary most times to sow seed on the instruction of Pastor Mcdouglas.
“My daughter said that, sometimes, the pastor would call her to his house to help and wash his children’s clothes and end up raping her.
“He threatened my daughter that she would die if she told anyone about it,” the witness said.
Six audio recordings of conversations between the witness and the defendant which were contained in a flashdrive were admitted in evidence.
While being cross-examined by the defence counsel, Suleiman Salami, the witness told the court that she had known the defendant for more than 12 years, adding that her husband had been outside Nigeria for 10 years.
She said the pastor used to collect money from her family but did not offer financial help to her family.
The businesswoman said she was a member of the church’s ushering department, administrative officer, and a member of building committee of the church until she left in 2020.
She told the court that the survivor was her first daughter.
The Investigative Police Officer, Inspector Akikuowo Omiere, also a prosecution witness, told the the court that she received a report on April 15, 2020, to the effect that the defendant had canal knowledge of his 17-year-old church member.
During cross-examination, the witness said that the survivor told her that she had not had sex before then.
She added that she was shown a medical report of the survivor from Mirabel Medical Centre which revealed vaginal penetration.
The presiding judge, Justice Ramon Oshodi, therefore, adjourned the case until February 8, 2023, for continuation of trial.
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