An Ikeja Sexual Offences and Domestic Violence Court in Lagos State, on Monday, sentenced a 56-year-old driver, Folarin Rauf, to life imprisonment for defiling his employer’s five-year-old granddaughter in the state.

Justice Abiola Soladoye handed down the sentence after finding the convict guilty of the offence of defilement.

Rauf was arraigned on November 30, 2021, on one count of defilement and he pleaded not guilty.

The offence committed contravened Section 137 of the Criminal Law of Lagos State 2015.

The judge held that the prosecution led by Abimbola Abolade proved the three ingredients of defilement and that the defendant had sexual intercourse with the minor and that the consent of the child was immaterial.

She said,” The prosecution has satisfied the three ingredients and the evidence of the victim corroborated the evidence of the other witnesses. The testimony of the victim was well corroborated by the mother and grandfather before it was reported to the authorities.

“The defence in their written address urged the court to discharge the defendant as there was no evidence against him. The conduct of the defendant is nasty, devoid of character, reckless and his ‘own way’ of saying thank you to his employer was to defile his granddaughter,” the judge said.

During the trial, the prosecution called four witnesses including the victim and tendered two documents while the defendant testified as sole witness for himself.

The victim, who testified on August 5, 2022, told the court that she was six years old at the time of giving evidence before the court.

She said her grandfather’s driver had s*x with her severally at her grandfather’s living room and in the Jeep on the premises and that she had lost the number of counts that he raped her.

She testified that on one of the occasions, she was playing with her friend when the driver asked the friend to leave and he inserted his p3n!s in her private parts.

The victim said Rauf threatened her not to tell anybody but that she later told her grandfather that the convict raped her.

During cross-examination, the victim told the court that the driver takes her to school and also drops her grandfather at work.

The second prosecution witness, a 70-year-old insurance practitioner, identified only as Oyenuga, who is the grandfather of the victim, said his granddaughter was raped by his driver at his residence in Lagos State.

How true is this?
I smell foulplay

He got what he deserved.