A High Court, sitting in Asaba, Delta State, has sentenced a 28-year-old man, Amechi Ogo, to life imprisonment for raping his four-year-old biological daughter.
Ogo was jailed, last Wednesday, by the High Court, presided over by Justice Flora Ngozi Azinge.
The convict was arraigned before the court on a charge of rape, having unlawfully had carnal of his child at Asaba on 31 May 2018.
The offence was contrary to Section 218 of the Criminal Code Law of Delta State.
The prosecution, led by the Director of Sexual Offences Unit, Ministry of Justice, Mrs P.U. Akamagwuna, told the court that the defendant came home on the fateful day and demanded for sex from his wife.
When his wife turned him down and left the house on an errand, the defendant forced himself on his four-year-old daughter.
He was however caught in the act by a neighbour and fled the scene, but he was subsequently arrested by the police.
The convict made a confessional statement which was tendered in court and in which he admitted to committing the offence.
He however retracted the confessional statement during his trial, and denied committing the offence.
Delivering judgement, Justice Azinge held that the convict’s own confessional statement proved beyond reasonable doubt that he committed the offence.
The judge also held that the evidence of the four-year-old child and the witness who caught him in the act further proved that he truly committed the heinous act.
Justice Azinge held that his defence, as stated in the confessional statement, to the effect that he lost all sense of reasoning after a native doctor laid hands on him and directed him to have sex with any woman he saw, was untenable and an afterthought.
She described the defendant as a paedophile whose conduct in raping his own four-year-old child was callous, animalistic, barbaric and against the laws of God.
The trial judge stated that the society needed to be protected from persons like Amechi Ogo who prey on children.
The court therefore found him guilty and sentenced him to life imprisonment.
The convict has since been registered in the Delta State Sex Offenders Register and his details uploaded to the national database.
Speaking after the judgment, Mrs P.U. Akamagwuna said the state Ministry of Justice will not relent in prosecuting all sex-related offenders.
She said the resolve was in line with the ministry’s zero tolerance policy towards such heinous crimes.
It will be recalled that the Sexual Offences Unit of the Delta State Ministry of Justice had previously obtained three judgments in sex-related cases in this current legal year.
