LAGOS, Nigeria – The Court of Appeal in Lagos has acquitted and discharged the Medical Director of Optimal Cancer Care Foundation, Dr Olufemi Olaleye.
The court upturned the decision of the Lagos State Sexual Offences and Domestic Violence Court which had sentenced Dr Olaleye, to life imprisonment for defiling his wife’s 16-year-old niece.
Justice Olukayode Bada who read the lead judgment which was adopted by the two other justices on the panel held that the trial court erred in convicting Dr Olaleye based on “tainted” and ‘unreliable’ evidence of his estranged wife, Oluremi and the alleged survivor.
The other members of the panel were Justice Zainab Abubakar and Justice Abdulazeez Dogo.
The appellate court agreed with the submissions of Olaleye’s lead counsel, Senior Advocate of Nigeria, Kemi Pinheiro, who insisted that there were material contradictions in the evidence gathered by the prosecutions which should not have been relied on by the lower court.
The court also faulted some other parts of the evidence of the prosecution during the trial, which was from a child forensic specialist, a medical doctor from the Mirabel centre and the investigating officer, which were found to be “worthless”
For the appellate court, the trial judge, Justice Rahman Oshodi also descended in the arena and interfered in the proceedings to bridge what it described as “the yawning gaps in the prosecution’s case”.
In the judgment, the court of appeal also queried why the prosecution failed to present material witnesses such as two family members who were said to have witnessed the appellant’s alleged confession.
The court added that a trial within trial ought to have been conducted during the trial to verify the voluntariness of the appellant’s confessional statements while he was in police custody, especially as he said he made it under duress after he had been detained for six days.
The court of appeal determined all five issues of appeal against the prosecution and in favour of the appellant.
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