I only put my hand, I didn’t rape her – Driver tells court

A driver, Emmanuel Okorie, who allegedely defiled his neighbour’s 15-year-old sister, has denied the allegation leveled against him by the Lagos State Government.

The defendant, who is standing trial before a Lagos High Court sitting in Igbosere, on Wednesday, told Justice Oluwatoyin Ipaye: “I let her go when I discovered that she was a virgin. I put my hand in her vagina and when I noticed that she was a virgin, I didn’t have sex with her.”

The suspect said that the incident occurred at his elder sister’s house in Ejigbo area of Lagos.

The defendant, who was led in trial within trial by his counsel Mr Worer Obuagbaka, insisted that he didn’t make any confessional statement, nor told his investigative police officer that he had sex with the victim.

“This statement you are seeing was not written by me, I was not given any paper to write. l was inside the cell, when a man nicked named Sean Paul, came and brought me out to where the IPO was.

“The the next thing he did was to slap me and then I saw Inspector Amina Adeoye with an envelope and I was asked to sign.

”When I asked to read the statement, Sean Paul hit me on my forehead and I started bleeding, I did not read the statement I signed under duress.”

Lagos State Prosecutor Mr Akin George, called the third prosecution witness, Inspector Amina Adeoye, who narrated how she recorded the defendant’s statement.

She said: ”On December 1, 2015, a case of defilement was transferred from Ejigbo Police Station to State Criminal Investigation Department SCID, Panti Yaba, and the victim that was defiled was 15-year-old then.”

“I took the statement of the victim and after the defendant’s statement had been taken, we had to refer the victim to Mirabel Center at Lagos University Teaching Hospital LASUTH, she was treated and the report was sent to our office.

She also told the Court that she read the statement Okorie made at Ejigbo, where he denied committing the offence, adding that she did not force him, to sign the statement.

“He wrote the statement that the girl and her friend were actually coming back from school, when the incident occurred”, Adeoye said.

The defendant was first arraigned on a count charge of defilement on December 14, 2015, at Yaba Magistrate’s Court.

He was alleged to have committed the offence on November 26, 2015, he was also arraingned before the High Court in April, 2017.

The victim, a Senior Secondary School Student, had told the Court that she and her friend, were coming back from School, around 4pm.

She said that the defendant called her, because her aunt sells provision, and said he bought a drink from her aunt that she should help him return the bottle.

The Victim who was led in evidence in Chief by the Lagos State Prosecutor Mr Akin George, said that the defendant who lives downstairs, in the same house with her, dragged her into his room and asked if she was a virgin.

She said: “He asked me if I was a virgin, I told him I am. After a while, I saw my skirt down and wet, I saw myself on the bed after he was through with what he did, he opened the door I was crying and he started pleading with me.

“He had sex with me and I was crying and pleading that he should leave me, but he did not listen to me.

“I fell sick, I was crying and went to my friend’s mother’s shop, she asked me what happened. He was at my back begging me to stop crying. He was about to run away when he was apprehended”

The case has been adjourned till July, 5, for continuation of trial.