Father Gets Life Sentence For Defiling 4-Year-Old Daughter

For daring to abuse and rape his four-year-old daughter, a 28-year-old father, Amechi Ogo, has been sentenced to life imprisonment by the Delta State High Court sitting in Asaba, the State capital

Ogo was arraigned before the High Court presided over by Honourable Justice Flora Ngozi Azinge, on a charge of rape and having unlawful carnal knowledge of his child on May 31, 2018, at Asaba, contrary to Section 218 of the Criminal Code Law of Delta State.

The prosecution, led by the Director of Sexual Offences Unit, Ministry of Justice, Mrs P.U. Akamagwuna, told the Court that the Defendant came home on a fateful day and demanded sex from his wife. However, when she turned him down and left the house on an errand, the defendant forced himself on his four-year-old daughter but was caught in the act by a neighbour.

After fleeing the crime scene, he was subsequently arrested by the Police and made a confessional statement which was tendered in court.

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

However, delivering judgement on the case 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 initial confessional statement, proved beyond reasonable doubt that he committed the offence.

The Judge 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.

He described Ogo as a paedophile, whose conduct in raping his own daughter was callous, animalistic, barbaric and against the laws of God, adding that society needs to be protected from persons like the defendant who prey on children.

The court thereafter sentenced him to life imprisonment.

In a chat with newsmen after the judgement, the prosecution counsel, Mrs P. U. Akamagwuna said the State Ministry of Justice will continue to aggressively prosecute all sex-related offenders in line with its zero-tolerance policy for such heinous crimes.

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

Meanwhile, the Sexual Offences Unit of the State Ministry of Justice had previously recorded three judgements in sex-related offences cases in this current legal year.