An Ogudu Magistrates’ Court in Lagos State has remanded a 19-year-old man, Andrew Chinedu, in prison over alleged defilement of two sisters, aged eight and six years.
The magistrate, Mrs E. Kubeinje, said that Chinedu was to spend the next 65 days in prison pending the receipt of legal advice from the State Director of Public Prosecutions, DPPs.
Kubeinje, who gave the ruling, also refused to take the plea of the accused.
Chinedu, an apprentice, who resides in Irawo, is standing trial on a two-count charge of child defilement and sexual assault.
At the commencement of the case, the prosecutor, Inspector Lucky Ihiehie, urged the court to remand the accused in prison, pending the receipt of legal advice from the DPP’s office.
He alleged that the accused committed the offences between the months of June 2018 and September 2018 at Abayomi Street, Irawo, in Ajegunle area of Ikorodu in Lagos State.
The prosecutor said that the Lagos State Domestic and Social Violence Office, which initially handled the case and confirmed the violation of the girls, referred the father to report the case to the Police.
Ihiehie said that the accused lived in the same compound with the parents of the girls.
According to him, when the older of the siblings was questioned, she claimed that the accused normally calls her into his room when her parents were not around to have sex with her. “Any time I refused, he would beat me.
He normally promises to buy me sweet but he never did,” Ihiehie quoted the child as saying.
The prosecutor also said that the six-year-old girl corroborated what her sister said and told the Police that the accused always had sex with her whenever their parents were not around and beats them if they refused.
“ He would tell her he wants to show her something and carry her to his bed and remove her cloths. “She said it was when her elder sister fell sick and their father took them to the hospital that she opened up to him.”
Ihiehie said that the offences contravened Sections 137 and 259 of the Criminal Law of Lagos State, 2015. The case was adjourned until March 20 for mention.
