An Ikeja High Court, on Monday, sentenced a 41-year-old teacher, Chukwu Ndubuisi, to life imprisonment for defiling a six-year-old pupil of Mind Builders School in Lagos.
Ndubuisi was the art teacher of the school as of June 2016 when the offence was committed.
He was first arraigned at an Ogudu Magistrates` Court on a charge of forceful penetration.
The teacher, however, pleaded not guilty to the charge.
His case was later transferred to Ikeja High Court before Justice Sedoten Ogunsanya, following Director of Public Prosecutions (DPP’s) advice.
Ndubuisi was charged before the court on a count charge of child defilement.
Delivering judgement on Monday, Justice
Ogunsanya, who cited several authorities, held that the prosecution proved his case against the defendant beyond reasonable doubt.
The judge held that the fact, circumstances, and quality of evidence against the defendant were compelling.
She stated that the defendant usually send the survivor’s friend to call her, adding 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”.
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“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,” Justice Ogunsanya added.
The presiding judge said the survivor told the court that anytime the defendant was done with the act, he would clean up the survivor with tissue paper.
She noted that the defendant had unhindered access to the child and defiled her several times.
Ogunsanya discountenance the evidence of two prosecution witnesses, who are medical doctors for being contradictory, stating that they did not come as expert witnesses.
She also dismissed the submission by defence witnesses that that the incident was not recorded on the school’s CCTV.
She upheld the result of the test conducted at the Mirabel Centre which showed that the survivor had torn hymen and reddish vulva and that there was evidence of forceful penetration.
Counsel to the defendant, O.C. Olagunju, pleaded with the court to temper justice with mercy.
He said no case of improper behaviour has ever been brought against the defendant nor has he ever had any case at any police station until this case.
But the prosecution counsel, 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.
Justice Ogunsanya subsequently sentenced the defendant to life imprisonment.
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