Father sentenced to life imprisonment for raping his 4-year-old daughter in Delta

Opinionnaija.com
February 6, 2022

Amechi Ogo, a 28-year-old father, was found guilty of raping his daughter when she was four years old and was sentenced to life in prison by the Delta State High Court in Asaba, which is presided over by Honorable Justice Flora Ngozi Azinge.

The defendant was charged with rape for engaging in illicit sexual contact with his child in Asaba on May 31, 2018, in violation of Section 218 of Delta State’s Criminal Code.

The prosecution informed the court that the defendant came home on a crucial day and demanded sex from his wife under the direction of the Director of Sexual Offences Unit, Ministry of Justice, Mrs. P.U. Akamagwuna. The defendant pressed himself on his daughter, who was four years old, after his wife rejected him and left the house on errand. He was caught in the act by a neighbour and fled the scene.

The police subsequently arrested him. Defendant made a confessional statement which was tendered in court.

In his trial, defendant retracted the confessional statement and denied committing the offence.

Delivering judgement on Wednesday 1st February 2023, Honourable Justice Flora Ngozi Azinge held that the evidence of the four-year-old child and the witness, who caught him in the act, together with the defendant?s confessional statement, proved beyond reasonable doubt that he committed the offence.

Justice Azinge held that the defence raised in the confessional statement of the Defendant, 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 daughter was callous, animalistic, barbaric and against the laws of God.

She stated that society needed to be protected from persons like the defendant who prey on children.

The court thereafter sentenced the defendant to life imprisonment.

Speaking to a newsman after the judgement, Mrs P. U. Akamagwuna said that the State Ministry of Justice will continue to aggressively prosecute all sex-related offenders in line with the ministry?s zero-tolerance policy for such heinous crimes.

It will be recalled that the Sexual Offences Unit of the Ministry of Justice had previously recorded three judgements in sex-related offences cases in this current legal year.

The convict has since been registered in the Delta State Sex Offenders Register and his details has been uploaded to the national database.