Driver jailed 12 years for raping teenage housemaid

A 37-year-old driver, Femi Tonade, was yesterday sentenced to 12 years in prison by an Ikeja High Court, Lagos, for defiling his employer’s 14-year-old housekeeper. Justice Kudirat Jose convicted Tonade on the grounds that the evidence of the minor against him was cogent and believable and that the prosecution proved its case beyond reasonable doubt.

She said: “It is easy to plead for people but it is easier for people to offend, you just don’t see a child and decide to have forceful carnal knowledge of her. “Section 137 of the Criminal Law of Lagos recommends a term of life in prison for the offence of defilement. “However, after listening to your allocutus, the court is going to be lenient with the defendant and sentence him to 12-years in prison.

“The sentence will commence from the first day he was incarcerated.” However the prosecution team led by Mrs. A. B. Awosika, had, during trial, told the court that Tonade committed the offence on December 1, 2015 at Iju-Ishaga, Lagos. According to Awosika, the offence contravened Section 137 of the Criminal Code of Lagos State.

He said: “The convict and his employer were outside a block of flats while the victim was in the building cleaning the upstairs apartment of her employer’s brother. “The convict crept upstairs to the apartment without his employer’s knowledge, physically restrained the housekeeper and had forceful carnal knowledge of her. “The victim confided in her employer the following day about the defilement, which was promptly reported to the authorities. Subsequent medical examinations confirmed that she was defiled.”