A magistrate court sitting in Port Harcourt, yesterday, sentenced one Mishack Aguebere who claims to be a pastor, to two years imprisonment for defiling a 13-year-old girl in Rumuomasi area of Obio/Akpor Council of Rivers State.
    
Aguebere was arraigned in court on July 25 2018 for putting hot candle wax into the private part of the victim under his care.
   
He was charged with unlawful and indecent actions contrary to section 222 of the criminal code CAP 37 Vol .2 Law of Rivers State of Nigeria 1999.
    
The convict was accused of constantly sexually assaulting the victim, who was living with them inside the church premises at Rumuomasi.
    
Chief Magistrate Felicitas Amanze, in her judgment, found the accused guilty of pouring hot candle wax into the victim’s private part and inserting a key holder into her private part, which he used to scoop the candle wax and leaked it.
  
Amanze held that the convict’s action resulted in forceful tearing of the victim’s hymen and other medical conditions as revealed by a medical report on a test conducted on her and tendered in court.
  
The Chief Magistrate further held that the victim, who has been psychologically traumatised throughout the court trial deserved justice, noting that sexual assault on children is becoming so rampant in society.
    
She, therefore, sentenced Aguebere to two years imprisonment.
   
Reacting to the judgment, Head, Legal Officer, International Federation of Female Lawyers (FIDA) in Rivers State, Esther Achor-Korienta, said the two-year jail term is not commensurate with the crime committed.
 
She noted that the punishment ought to have attracted life imprisonment, blaming it on the Police‘s lapses in charging the case under an inappropriate section of the law.
    
She said: “ The case was brought under section 222 of the criminal code, which carries two years imprisonment or three years, according to the age of the child. The court was bound with the section, which is a lapse on the part of the prosecution (the police). Sometimes, the police charge cases without the appropriate sections. 
 
“So, the same thing happened in this case, they brought it under indecent and unlawful deals on girls, which carries only a two-year jail term.

“From what has happened, I believe this is an indication of ‘Spiritism’. Since we have been hearing cases of defilement and sexual abuse, this one stood out from other cases. It is a case that anybody that hears cringes.
  
“It was the principal of her school that made the complaint at FIDA, where we had to follow up on the case to this stage.”
   
On her part, the Principal of Community Secondary School (CSS) Rumuomasi, Dike Eberechi, said: “In 2018, a girl came to my office to report how the person she is staying with had been abusing her sexually. Using all sorts of instruments on her. I took the matter to the police who then prosecuted the convict.”