Man bags 21 years for raping late daughter

A 52-year old man, Jacob Alonge, has been sentenced to 21 years imprisonment for raping his late 12 years old daughter, Gift Alonge.

Gift was impregnated by her father from the sexual assault before her death.

She and some members of the BraveHeart Initiative for Youth and Women (BHI) died in a car crash while going to Benin on January 16 this year on their to Benin for judgment.

The late Gift was five months pregnant at the time of her death.

Her father was said to have committed the offence at Ososo in Akoko-Edo local government area of Edo state.

He initially pleaded guilty to the offence but changed his plea to not guilty after the death of his daughter which made full trial to commence.

Jacob was convicted on three count charges of unlawful possession of fetish wrap of the victims’ pubic hair; unlawfully and indecently have canal knowledge of his biological daughter and repeated sexual assault.

Delivering judgment in the case, Presiding Magistrate, D.I Adamaigbo (Mrs.) sentenced Jacob Alonge to five years on count one, two years and 14 years respectively on count two and three.

The jail terms are to run consecutively.

She said, “Alonge consecutively had sex with his own daughter and got her pregnant and thereby subjected her to shame and emotional stress.

“May her soul rest in peace. To serve as deterrent to others, and would be offenders, we are of the opinion that the defendant should not have a space in a decent society.”

Adamaigbo said the statement of the victim and the evidence of the PW1 confirmed what the victim said that “She was five months pregnant and that she was demoralised. Emotional distress is sufficient corroboration that the victim was indeed sexually assaulted.

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“It has been established beyond reasonable doubt that the accused had canal knowledge of the victim as she said in her statement ‘My father by name Jacob Alonge used to wake me up at night and said I should follow him for prayers when we reach inside the bush, he will force me and have sexual intercourse with me, then in the second statement which she made at the state police headquarters, she stated and I quote ‘last year which is 2017 my father by name Joseph Alonge has been having sex with me, he threatened me not to tell anybody and if I do, he will kill me”

She stated further in the same statement that and I quote “one night he called me and put me on top of a stone and used razor blade to shave my private body and threatened me not to tell anybody”

This statement was corroborated by the statement of the police in evidence.

“The convict admitted in his statement and the law is that evidence admitted need no further proof, the defence that he was lured into the crime by his own daughter is an afterthought. We therefore find him guilty of each of the counts”.

Reacting to the judgment, Executive Director of BHI, Priscillia Usiobaifo said; “We have seen how resilience can prove a worthwhile. I am very happy that there is no option of fine because we have had several cases that we won and they will give options of fine and this has encouraged us and those that died did not die in vain.”