Crime: 65-year-old landlord bags life imprisonment for sexual assault.

Crime: 65-year-old landlord bags life imprisonment for sexual assault.

Justice Abiola Soladoye of a Lagos Sexual Offences and Domestic Violence Court, yesterday, sentenced 65-year-old Igwe Ambrose to double life imprisonment for inserting his fingers into the private parts of his tenant’s under-aged children. The survivors were seven and 11 years old at the time of the assaults.

The prosecution alleged that the defendant committed the offence between January and June 2021 at Shagari Estate, Ipaja, Lagos. According to the prosecution, the offence was contrary to the provision of Sections 135 and 261 of the Criminal Laws of Lagos State, 2015.

While delivering judgment, the judge held that the prosecution proved beyond reasonable doubt, the four-count charge of sexual assault by penetration and indecent treatment of a child brought against the defendant by the state government.

Soladoye said that the defendant was a dirty old man who fingered and touched the breasts of the survivors under the pretext of helping them with their school home tasks. She held that the defendant was identified and the evidence of the survivors exposed him as a bare-faced liar and untruthful.

“The children opened up to their mother, who then informed her husband. He thereafter confronted the defendant and the matter was reported to a police station.

“When the police visited the scene, the defendant was invited to the station where he denied the allegations against him. The testimonies of the survivors were credible, as they cannot consent to being fingered by the landlord.

“The defendant was identified as the assailant and their evidence was corroborated by their mother and the Investigating Police Officer (IPO) who visited the crime scene, and a clear account of the assault and indecent treatment was confirmed,” the court held.

The judge therefore found him guilty on all the four-count charge and convicted him.  Soladoye held that counts one and two carry life imprisonment each. 

“The defendant is hereby sentenced to life imprisonment on each of the counts. On counts three and four, which carry seven years jail term, you are hereby sentenced to seven years imprisonment on each of the counts. “Your name to be entered in the Sexual Offences Register maintained by Lagos State Government,” the judge added.

During trial, the State Counsel, Mrs Olufunke Adegoke, called four witnesses: the two survivors, their mother and IPO, who tendered five exhibits but the convict testified alone in defence.