23-year-old Iniobong Okon Moses was on Wednesday, January 20, sentenced to life imprisonment for raping his three-year-old stepdaughter in Ikot Akpe, Uyo local government area of Akwa Ibom state, by Justice Okon Okon of the High Court sitting in Uyo.
Moses, a native of Afaha Udo Eyop in Ibesikpo Asutan Local Government Area of the State, was arrested on November 8 2019 for raping the minor. In his confessional statement, Moses claimed he was drunk and that he defiled the infant by putting his fingers and penis into the victim’s vagina when his wife left for the market.
Justice Okon in his ruling delivered today, rejected Moses’s claim of being drunk, saying “drunkenness is not an exculpatory defence in Law for the commission of a crime and more so, as it was self-inflicted.”
The judge described Moses as “a disgrace to humanity, whose conduct falls abysmally below even the conduct of beasts.”. He held that by his indefensible and despicable act, the convict has shown himself to be callous and devoid of passion”. He further held that the convict “does not deserve to walk freely on Nigerian soil and breathe the air of freedom meant for decent members of the society.”
Justice Okon said “in her childhood and angelic innocence and vulnerability, the victim could even have been looking at the accused gleefully in naivety expecting no hurt from the accused in loco parentis with her.”
The Police Medical Report presented in court showed a history of abnormal vaginal discharge and wound on the labium of the victim, a case of sexual assault with genital ulcer and genital tract infection.
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