On Wednesday, a sixty-one-year-old pastor testified before an Ikeja Sexual Offenses and Domestic Violence Court that Godwin Emmanuel, his tenant, had defiled and impregnated his sixteen-year-old daughter.
Emmanuel was charged with one count of defilement by the Lagos State government, to which he entered a not guilty plea.
The prosecution informed the court that, in the Ajangbadi neighborhood of Badagry, between April and July of 2021, Emmanuel allegedly violated the pastor’s daughter.
Prosecution counsel said the offence contravened the Criminal Laws of Lagos State.
Following his not guilty plea, state counsel, Abimbola Abolade invited the pastor to testify before the court.
The witness told the court that Emmanuel was his tenant, whom he knew through an estate agent.
He said he had known Emmanuel for three to four years and that his daughter identified the defendant as the person responsible for her pregnancy since he had been sleeping with her.
“Godwin defiled my daughter and impregnated her at the age of 16 years.
“I reported the case at Area K Police Station in Badagry where my daughter confirmed that he had been sleeping with her for a long time.
“My daughter kept the pregnancy and gave birth to a female child,” he said.
Under cross-examination by defence counsel, Victor Edet, the pastor told the court that he could not recollect the precise date that he reported the case to the police.
He said, however, that he later reported the case at the Domestic and Sexual Violence Agency and at a medical centre when the police did nothing about his complaint.
He said he was convinced that it was the defendant that impregnated his daughter after Emmanuel’s wife, a nurse, gave drugs to his daughter to abort the pregnancy.
The pastor also told the court that his daughter told him that during one of the sex romps, the condom in use broke.
Mr Emmanuel, however, told her to shift responsibility to a third person whom he introduced to her, the pastor added.
Presiding Justice Abiola Soladoye adjourned further hearing in the case to December 11.
(NAN)