‘How caterer defiled seven-year-old girl’

An Ikeja Domestic Violence and Sexual Offences Court on Tuesday heard how a caterer, Ope Popoola, 23, allegedly defiled a seven-year-old girl in a commercial tricycle.

Popoola is facing charges bordering on child defilement filed against him by the Lagos State government before Justice Sybil Nwaka.

Led in evidence by the prosecution, Ms A. R Abolade, a policewoman, Sergeant (Sgt.) Patience Chukwuede told the court that the child’s father had come to the Lion Building Police Station on May 29, 2016 at about 8.50 p.m. to lodge a complaint of sexual assault against Popoola.

Chukwuede, who is the Investigating Police Officer (IPO) disclosed that the case was referred to her for investigation.


She said the survivor was given a medical referral paper to the Island Maternity Hospital for examination.

According to the IPO, the complainant had sent his seven-year-old daughter on an errand to get the balance of change from where she went to buy pure water.

She said that Popoola saw the girl while going on the errand took her into a parked commercial tricycle and allegedly penetrated her vagina with his fingers.

She told the court that a man who saw them inside the ‘Keke Marwa’ approached the defendant and the child and took them to the church where her father was waiting for her, “The man told her father he saw the girl and Ope in the parked Keke Marwa, he asked the girl what they were doing at that time of the day and she said Ope was putting his fingers in her private part,” Chukwuede said.

The policewoman said that while interrogating the child, she told her that when Ope accosted her, he had asked her where she was going.

When she told him, Popoola told her that he wanted to buy something for her. “He then grabbed her, took her to the parked Keke Marwa and started using his fingers to touch her private part,” the IPO said.

Chukwuede said that as part of her investigation, she went to the scene of the crime but the parked commercial tricycle was no longer there.

She said she also made efforts to contact the man who had flashed his torch at them and caught the defendant in the act but my efforts proved abortive.


While being cross-examined by the defence counsel, Mr T. K Adeyiola, the IPO revealed that Popoola had admitted that he defiled the minor, “He confessed to touching the child, he said so himself. It is in his confessional statement,” she said.

Justice Sybil Nwaka has adjourned the case till June 18.