A 34-year old man, Kehinde Paul Layode,
has been arraigned before a family court in Ikeja for allegedly defiling a
three-year old girl (name withheld).
The incident, which happened at 3/5, John
Crescent, Igando, Lagos, Southwest Nigeria, was reported at the Igando Police
Station.
The accused, if found guilty, risks
spending a minimum of five years in jail under the Criminal Laws of Lagos
State.
According to the girl’s
mother (name withheld) who spoke with P.M.NEWS correspondents, Kehinde was one
of her neighbours and she left her daughter in his custody to get drugs for the
girl when the man allegedly took advantage of her.
“I was going to make my hair
in the salon when I discovered that my daughter’s temperature was high and I
told Kehinde’s wife to help me take care of her. But she asked me to leave her
with her husband since she also wanted to make her hair and that we should go
to the salon together.”
“It wasn’t up to ten minutes
after I went to get the drugs for her that I returned to the house and asked
Kenny (Kehinde) to open the door but he didn’t. Instead, he told me that the
girl was sleeping, that I shouldn’t bother myself about her. Then I asked him
to at least open the door for me to see my girl and he said that he was in the
bathroom.”
The girl’s mother said she
was shocked when the door was eventually opened and she discovered that the
girl had been defiled.
“I insisted that he opened
the door. At this point, my daughter was lying down on the bed but was not
sleeping. I asked him why he told a lie but he did not respond. I only observed
that my girl was looking rather disturbed.
“When I opened her pant out
of suspicion to check her, I saw sperm in between her thighs. I got really mad
at him and asked him what happened but he went really wild and told me that he
did not do anything. ‘How could I have raped her?’ he asked me and when
neighbours came around, they were also as surprised as I was,” she narrated.
The doctor’s report
confirmed that the girl was defiled following the tests carried out on her.
It was also alleged that the
accused had pleaded with the family to settle out of court but the girl’s
family insisted that they wanted justice to prevail.
When the matter was
initially taken to the magistrate’s court, he pleaded not guilty and was
granted bail in the sum of N250, 000 with a surety and the matter was adjourned
till Friday, 22 February, 2013.
However, the matter was
tranferred to the family court. The court did not sit on 22 February and the
matter was adjourned till 8 April, 2013.
Culled from PM News
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