A magistrate court sitting in Igarra, Edo state on Friday sentenced a 53-year-old man, Vincent Akande to 14 years in prison for raping a 14-year-old epileptic girl.
Police prosecutor, Sergeant Samuel Obeze, told the Court that Akande committed the crime on May, 12 2019 when the girl was at Igbetua river side sieving sand to get some money for the family.
The victim, who narrated her ordeal in court, said the convict, a vigilante member grabbed her while she was packing sand from the river and threatened her with adane gun with him before she surrendered to him.
She further told the court that Akande said he would kill her like a three-year-old girl who was raped and strangled to death by the same river side few weeks earlier.
She explained that the incident was the third time the convict would forcefully rape her and threatened to kill her if she dared report to her parents.
She said she reported the matter to her stepmother and father when she could no longer bear the pains of being raped, adding that her father later took the matter to the community head.
The victim’s father Haruna Osheku, told the court that the community resolved the matter and asked Akande to pay a fine of a female goat and N5,000 for the crime but he refused before an NGO, BraveHeart Initiative for Youth & Women (BHI), took up the matter and he was then charged to court.
The prosecutor told the court that the convict is arraigned on a one-count charge bothering on having canal knowledge of the 14 years without her consent, adding the offence is punishable under section 258 of the criminal code.
The convict however pleaded not guilty to the charge but magistrate found him guilty of the charge.
Delivering his judgement, magistrate chief, Nosa Musoe, however sentenced Akande to 14 years in prison without option of fine.
“I have the privilege of watching the defendant throughout this trial, he is a very cunning man and deeply deceitful. I therefore find the defendant guilty as charged. I have been in this district for the past three years, the rate of rape of young girls is on the rise. I hereby sentenced the defendant to fourteen years imprisonment without an option of fine,” he ruled.
“I must confess that this is one of the most difficult cases I have to handle in my career as a judge, very difficult and very painful. If you have daughters at home please tell your daughters to keep themselves.
“So let this go out to everywhere that this man has been sentenced to fourteen years imprisonment and let those who still engage in raping of innocent girls know that if they get caught there will be no mercy and you are lucky enough that the case is in my court and the law empowers me to give you fourteen years if it was in High court, for life you will be in prison,” he said.
