A 57-year old man, Idowu Fashola has been remanded at the Ikoyi Prison, Lagos for allegedly defiling his wife’s sister’s 13-year old daughter.
He was ordered to be remanded pending when he would perfect the bail conditions granted him by an Igbosere Magistrate Court for allegedly having unlawful canal knowledge of the girl on several occasions after giving her tea prepared with sleeping substances to drink.
A Police source alleged that the Divisional Police Officer, DPO in charge of Adeniji Adele Division, Lagos Island, Lagos directed a team led by Bolanle Olowu to investigate the accused following the transfer of the case to the Division by the officials of the Lagos State Domestic and Sexual Violence Response Team, DSVRT.
The accused was charged before the Igbosere Magistrate Court on a three-count charge of unlawful penetration sexually into the vagina of a 13-year old girl without her consent.
Police Counsel, Jimoh Joseph informed the court that the accused committed the alleged crime in 2017 at 39, Animashaun Street, Ijeshatedo, Surulere, Lagos where the accused resides with the victim.
Joseph told the court that the parents of the victim reported to the officials of the DSVRT that they entrusted the victim in the care of the their sister who is the wife of the accused when she was three years old and that their daughter told them that she could no longer stay at the home any longer.
When asked why she was not willing to stay with her sister again, she allegedly told them that the suspect had been having sex with her for long.
Joseph said that the complainant told the DSVRT that their daughter further narrated that anytime the man wanted to have sex with her, he would prepare tea for her and that once she drank the tea, she would sleep off and later found herself naked the following morning with sperm coming out from her private parts.
He said that the victim told the police that the suspect had raped her several times and warned her not to tell anyone or else she would die.
Joseph said that following the victim’s narration, the DSVRT took the victim to the hospital for medical examination where doctors confirmed that the victim had been sexually molested on several occasions leading to the accused’s arrest.
He said that during Investigation, the accused allegedly confessed to the crime that the devil pushed him to commit the offence.
Joseph added that the offences, the accused committed were punishable under sections 137, 263 and 261 of the Criminal Laws of Lagos State, 2015.
The accused, however, pleaded not guilty to the crime in the open court and Magistrate B. I. Bakare granted him bail in the sum of N250,000 with two dirties in like sum.
Bakare adjourned the case till 11 June, 2018 for mention and ordered that the defendant be kept in prison custody till he fulfilled the bail conditions