Court acquits defendant in child defilement case, berates DPP, police
An Ikeja Domestic Violence and Sexual Offences Court on Tuesday acquitted a driver, Afeez Balogun, 30, who was charged with defiling a two-year-old pupil of Holbrook Creche Nursery and Primary School in Gbagada, Lagos.
Justice Abiola Soladoye held that the prosecution failed to prove its case beyond reasonable doubt and acquitted Balogun after he had spent three years in custody.
The Judge berated the Lagos State Directorate of Public Prosecution (DPP) and the police for poor handling of the case against the driver.
According to the judge, the police did not investigate the case thoroughly before presenting it before the DPP.
She said: “The police was shoddy in investigating this case. The state prosecution service domiciled in the DPP cannot be completely exonerated of blame.
“There ought to be closer interaction with the authorities and the DPP as each case is being investigated. It is not enough to be handing legal advice at the conclusion of investigations,” the judge said.
Soladoye charged that prosecution, mainly the lawyers, must be actively involved in ensuring that evidence would be properly gathered, meticulously evaluated and every appropriate lead followed.
“Unless investigations are carried out in a painstaking, thorough manner, sloppy investigations shall continue to be the bane of this criminal justice system.
“The resultant effect is that criminals and offenders will go free, victims will be let down by the system and justice will not be seen to have been done,” she said.
The Judge further held that the inability of the police to conduct an identification parade as required by law to properly identify who molested the minor in the school dealt a fatal blow to their case against the defendant.
She described the identification parade conducted by the school, in which the minor picked out the defendant as the perpetrator, as self-serving.
According to the Judge, such a parade did not have any efficacy in law, adding that the failure of the minor to identify the defendant in the dock made the prosecution’s case to “collapse like a pack of cards”.
She described the trial as a collosal waste of judicial time and resources.
In his reaction to the judgment, Mr Oluwole Kehinde, the counsel to the defendant, expressed gratitude to the court.
He said, “There is no cohesion between the police, lawyers and the justice ministry, and the judges bear the brunt.”
Earlier during the trial, the lead counsel for the prosecution, Mr Olusola Soneye had alleged that the driver, an employee of Holbrook Creche Nursery and Primary School, committed the offence sometime in July 2018.
The child, while testifying in court, failed to identify the defendant in court as her abuser but kept mentioning ‘Mr Wale’ as the perpetrator of the alleged crime.
Four witnesses – the minor, her mother, a medical doctor and a police officer – had testified for the prosecution.
The doctor, Oyedeji Alagbe, told the court that the child was incoherent during his interactions with her.
He however said that the minor was able to identify a dummy penis shown to her as what was used to defile her.