Supreme Court affirms 5 years jail term for rapist

THE Supreme Court, Monday affirmed the judgment of a High Court sitting in Oleh, Delta State which sentenced one Mr. Afor Lucky to five years imprisonment with hard labour for raping an 11-year-old girl.

Dismissing an appeal brought before it by Mr. Afor Lucky, challenging the ruling of the High Court, the Supreme Court agreed with arguments of the State Attorney-General and Commissioner for Justice, Barrister Peter Mrakpor that the lower court was right to have convicted and sentenced the appellant.

Mrakpor had argued that the necessary ingredients to sustain conviction were eminently present and proven beyond reasonable doubt.

In a unanimous judgment of the panel of five Justices of the Supreme Court, delivered by Justice Nwali Sylvester Ngwuta, the Supreme Court decried the high rate at which young and innocent girls were being defiled by adults in the society.

On the five years prison term imposed by the trial Court on the appellant, the apex court held that: “The sham of Prison term he imposed on the appellant is an attack on law and moral basis for prison term.

“The young and old, who have their brains between their legs and who have a miserable sum of N300, 000 to throw about can ravage young mothers at will.

Not only that the brute violently, as in armed robbery, took away the pride of the innocent girl, the act is a major dent on her psyche and will remain so for life”.

Vanguard