An Ikeja Sexual Offences and Domestic Violence Court has sentenced one Friday Ekanem Ekam, to 21 years in prison, after it found him guilty of sexually assaulting an 11-year-old girl.
Justice Abiola Soladoye sentenced the defendant, Ekam, on Wednesday, after he pleaded guilty to two charges of sexual assault of the victim, Chioma Ufomadu, from December 2013 to November 2015.
The defendant pleaded guilty following a plea bargain.
The defence counsel, Bunmi Omodele, told the court that his client made a plea bargain with the prosecution to face lesser charges than the defilement of a child as seen in Section 137 of the Criminal Laws of Lagos State, with the hope of having his sentence reduced from life imprisonment.
The prosecution counsel, A. I. Abolade, brought two lesser charges against the defendant, including an attempted sexual assault of an 11-year-old by penetrating her vagina and an indecent treatment of a child, wherein he penetrated the victim by inserting his fingers in her anus.
Soladoye held that due to the plea bargain entered by the defendant, the court will give a reduced sentence of 14 years in prison to the defendant for attempted sexual assault.
The judge said the defendant would also serve an additional seven-year prison time for the charge of indecent treatment of a child.
“Both sentences add up to 21 years imprisonment and will be counted from the year the defendant was remanded in jail”, she said.
Ekam was remanded in jail in 2015.
The prosecution told the court that the defendant’s abuse of the victim took place in Lekki Phase 1, Lagos State.
