Lagos High court sentences man to life imprisonment for sexually assaulting his three children

An Ikeja Sexual Offences and Domestic Violence Court on Monday, January 22, sentenced a man identified as Ademola Oladimeji to four life imprisonment for sexually assaulting his three children aged five, seven, and nine.

Delivering judgment in the case, the presiding judge, Justice Abiola Soladoye, held that the evidence of the respective prosecution witnesses was believable and truthful. The judge added that their evidence established the offence of sexual assault by penetration and not defilement. According to her, the evidence of the three survivors was corroborated by the investigative police officer and their mother.

“Upon careful review of the evidence before the court, the children did not say their father inserted his penis into their ‘bum bum’, they only said he touched their ‘bum bum’. I observed the three of them. They did not lie against their father, they did not say he used his penis, he only used his fingers. The children gave unshaken testimonies on how their father fiddled with their innocence multiple times by inserting his fingers into their vaginas. The wife of the defendant, in her testimony, said the children complained of pain in their private and she was informed at the Mirabel Medical Centre that the children had been sexually assaulted.” the judge held

The judge added that the defendant was desperate to distance himself from the allegation by denying the offences.

“To the mind of this court, I do not believe his narration though he denied fiddling with his daughters but his testimony did not add up. His narration shows how desperate he is to get out of the charge against his own children. The court holds that there was penetration as oral and documentary evidence before the court pointed to the fact that the defendant messed around with the purity of his three children.”

Soladoye said the conduct of the defendant was despicable, morally corrupt, incestuous, and against the order of nature. The judge, who said the prosecution failed to establish the three-count bordering on defilement, thereafter changed it to sexual assault by penetration and convicted him on each of the counts.

She also convicted Oladimeji of the fourth count charge of sexual assault by penetration and sentenced him to life imprisonment on each count.

The sentence, the judge held, would run concurrently. The judge added that the name of the convict would be registered in the Lagos State Sexual Offences Register.