Yaba Magistrates’ Court in Lagos has discharged and acquitted a 15-year-old girl accused of murdering her father’s 51-year-old friend, who tried to ra
Yaba Magistrates’ Court in Lagos has discharged and acquitted a 15-year-old girl accused of murdering her father’s 51-year-old friend, who tried to rape her.
Magistrate Philip Adebowale Ojo struck out the murder charge filed by the police against the Senior Secondary School (SSS) 3 student, following advice from the Lagos State Directorate of Public Prosecution (DPP).
The State Criminal Intelligence and Investigation Department (SCIID) had on March 24, 2020, in a charge marked C/51/2020, alleged that the teenager stabbed Mr. Babatunde Ishola to death on March 7.
The incident occurred in his home on Nwadolu Street, Aboru, Lagos. Ishola, the father’s friend was said to be employed as a guard at a school in the community and lived alone. The police said the girl’s act contravened Section 225 of the Criminal Law of Lagos State, Nigeria, 2015.
It obtained an order for the pupil to be remanded at the Lagos State Correctional Home for Girls, Idi Arabia, while the case was adjourned for legal advice from the OPD. The plea of the teenager, who was represented pro bono by the Lagos State Office of the Public Defender (OPD), was not taken.
At the resumption of proceedings yesterday, Ojo said the court had received the DPP’s report. He said the report corroborated the facts of the matter as set out in the case file, that that there were “insufficient facts to establish a prima facie case of murder against the suspect.”
He discharged and acquitted the suspect.
