An Islamic teacher, Adam Farouk, has been sentenced to life imprisonment by Justice Abiola Soladoye of an Ikeja Domestic Violence and Sexual Offences Court, Lagos State, on Tuesday for defiling eight pupils in his class.
Farouk violated the students, aged six to eleven, on Balogun Street, Parkview Estate, Ikoyi, Lagos, between November 2018 and February 2019.
The convict was arraigned on eight counts of sexual assault filed by the Lagos State Government against him.
Justice Soladoye declared in her decision that the prosecution proved beyond a reasonable doubt the elements of the eight offenses bordering on sexual assault by penetration.
The prisoner, according to Soladoye, is morally depraved and a disgrace to Islam.
The judge ruled that the survivors’ testimony was reliable and truthful and added that their manner during the trial demonstrated that they were telling the truth.
She claimed that the students’ testimony had been verified since they had named the convict as their teacher who had poked their privates with his index fingers.
The 10th prosecution witness, Mrs. Oluchi Nwoke-Okoi, a midwife with the Women at Risk International Foundation, testified, according to Soladoye, that the students had vaginal injuries.
The judge further ruled that the defendant asked the students to turn around while he defiled each one of them individually.
Justice Soladoye ruled that although the convict had lied to the jury during the trial, the jury had not been duped.
She said, “The demeanour of the defendant is nothing to write home about; his stony face appears mischievous; he is extremely unkind and ruthless, fingering his students with his index fingers.
“What an Islamic teacher, who took undue advantage of poor students in Islam and messed around with their purity and dignity.
“He is meant to teach his students morals, discipline and values, but alas, the reverse is the case.
”The dignity and safety of our students must be cherished. Dirty Islamic teacher of his kind must be locked away and made to pay for his dirty sexual indiscretions.”
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