By SEGUN KASALI, Lagos
A 35-year-old traditional healer, Prince Tom has bagged double life imprisonments for kidnapping and raping a 15-year-old girl (names withheld), in Lagos.
The judgement was delivered by Justice Abiola Soladoye of an Ikeja Domestic Violence and Sexual Offences Court on Wednesday.
According to the judge, the convict said the prosecutor had proved its case beyond a reasonable doubt.
She noted, “In view of all evidence presented in court, I am convinced that the accused is guilty of these two counts.”
She held that the evidence of the first prosecution witness, who happened to be the victim had remained consistent, and it is the fact, because it is an actual narration of what happened, and remain unshaken even during cross-examination.
The trial judge also noted that the fact of the victim evidence was also supported by the evidence of a second prosecution witness, who happened to be the victim’s mother as well as other witnesses.
Based on the evidence before her, Justice Abiola Soladoye described the convict as toxic in character and used the name of God to deceive his victim.
She said, “His attitude is ridiculous, he is mean and callous. The defendant extorted the mother of the victim and brainwashed them to heal their sick breadwinner.”
The judge then warns parents not to trust their children with people whom they don’t know anything about and not to trust strangers with their children.
She then sentenced the defendant to life imprisonment for count one and life imprisonment for count two. The sentence is to run concurrently.
It was gathered that the senior secondary school student was led to a hotel sometime on December 10, 2019, after he came with a member of her family’s church to their home.
Earlier, the survivor told the court during her testimony that Prince Tom requested N25,000 as part of a fee to heal her father of stroke.
She explained that her mother told her to follow Tom to a Point of Sale, POS, operator to withdraw the sum.
According to her, the teenager said they went to some POS operators to make withdrawals but were unsuccessful because the operators had insufficient funds.
She added that in their search for another POS, she and the convict took a commercial motorcycle from her neighbourhood in Bariga to Ilupeju, both in Lagos State.
The girl narrated, “When we got to Ilupeju, my mother called him on the phone and I heard him tell my mother, she is my sister, I cannot do anything to her, ma.”
Continuing, “He approached a commercial tricycle park and informed the drivers that she was his sibling who had just come to Lagos from a village and asked for a hotel around the area.
She explained to the court further, “I had exhausted my transport fare, I am always staying at home, my parents do not allow me to go out; so, upon hearing him asking for a hotel, I told him I wanted to go back home.
“He said that he was seeing something in the spiritual realm that if I went back home, my father would die.”
According to her, they went to a hotel (Osmak Hotel Mushin) and the supposed healer paid for a room but she refused to follow him into the hotel room.
She narrated that the defendant persuaded her to follow him so that they could pray for her father’s healing.
While in the room, she said he was praying in God’s name and he brought out a black oil and said: “In the next five minutes, your father is going to get up from his sickbed and walk. After five minutes, he said it had been done and we should enjoy ourselves but I insisted that we should go home, he asked if I was stupid and told me to lie on the bed.”
“I refused, and the next thing I felt was a gun pointed at my head. I started shouting and he held my neck, removed my trousers, and forcefully had sex with me.
“I went to the bathroom afterwards and was crying; he said I should not tell my mother what happened and asked if I had eaten. I said I had not eaten since 4 pm, and the time was 8 pm,” she narrated to the court.
The teenager said they went downstairs and the hotel manager noticed bloodstains on her clothes and wanted to speak to her but the defendant refused and sent her back to the room.
However, she told the court that the defendant came back to the hotel room, fell asleep, and left the room key on the bed.
Following that, she said she could not sleep but took the key, opened the door, went outside, and locked the defendant inside.
Further, she went to the receptionist and used her phone and called her mother but it was their pastor who answered, she said.
“I explained everything that happened and gave him the address. I saw the hotel manager and explained what happened and he told me that he noticed the bloodstains and wanted to speak with me.
“The manager told the staff members not to let the defendant out of the hotel room and they called the police who came to pick him up. This was about 2 am,” she explained.
The teenager said though she lived in Lagos but she never went out until the day she was kidnapped and raped. (Nigerian Tribune)
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