A High Court sitting in Ikeja has sentenced a school teacher, Chukwu Ndubuisi to life imprisonment for defiling a six-year-old pupil of Mind Builders School, Lagos State.
The 41-year-old teacher was the school’s art teacher as of June 2016 when the offense was committed.
He was first arraigned at an Ogudu Magistrate Court on a charge of forceful penetration.
However, the case was later transferred to Ikeja High Court before Justice Sedoten Ogunsanya following the advice of the Director of Public Prosecution (DPP).
The defendant was charged before the court on a one-count charge of child defilement, of which he pleaded not guilty.
Justice Ogunsanya, while delivering his judgment, held that the prosecution has proved his case against the defendant beyond a reasonable doubt.
The judge held that the fact, circumstances, and quality of evidence against the defendant were compelling.
The court revealed that the first time the survivor told her mother of her experience was when she was discussing the case of a seven-year-old girl that was defiled and killed, which went viral.
She said the survivor whispered to her mother that she wanted to discuss something with her.
The court noted that they went outside and the survivor narrated her experience to her, and pleaded with her mother not to tell her father and brother.
The mother told the father, following which they went to her school but the art teacher was not around.
She further noted that the parents reported the matter at the Police Station
The matter was investigated and a test was conducted on the survivor at Ikosi Health Center which revealed that the survivor had been defiled.
She said the matter was later taken up by the Domestic and Sexual Violence Agency (DSVA).
Justice Ogunsanya held that the account of the survivor and that of her mother was uncontroverted, corroborated each other, and that they gave a good account of the assault.
The court noted that the defendant usually sends the survivor’s friend to call her and that the first time the defendant defiled her was in the female toilet and that 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 “bum bum” into her “bum bum”.
“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.”
She said the survivor told the court that when the defendant is finished, he would clean up the survivor with tissue paper.
The court maintained that the defendant had unhindered access to the child and defiled her several times.