The Bayelsa State High Court, sitting in Yenagoa, has sentenced 41-year-old Baridapsi Needam to 14 years imprisonment for raping and impregnating his daughter.
It was learnt that the victim gave birth to a baby girl while the trial was pending.
Bayelsa State Commissioner of Justice and Attorney-General Biriyai Dambo, in the suit numbered YHC/14C/2022, charged the accused with the offence of rape, contrary to Section 1(1) of the Violence Against Persons (Prohibition) Law of Bayelsa State, 2021.
The State Prosecuting Counsel and Deputy Director in the Bayelsa State Ministry of Justice, Pere Amanda Egbuson, told the court that investigations revealed that the accused began defiling his daughter when she was seven years old by inserting his fingers into her vagina and started having sex with her in 2020 until she got pregnant in 2022.
The presiding judge, Justice D.E. Adokeme, stated while delivering the judgement that the prosecution presented credible evidence and made reference to the DNA result, which revealed a 99.99 per cent positive report that the convict is the father of the child.
The court ruled that the prosecution has proven its case beyond reasonable doubt that Needam committed the offence of rape and sentenced him to 14 years imprisonment.
Speaking after the judgement, lead prosecuting counsel Pere Amanda Egbuson noted that the judgement will serve as a deterrent to others as a strong message has been sent that the court will not tolerate such heinous acts.
The convict, Baridapsi Needman, who hails from Ogani Wily Kaira Community in Ogoni in Rivers State, was reported to the police by members of the state gender advocacy group, Gender Response Initiative Team, GRIT, in 2022, when a concerned neighbour noticed that the victim was five months pregnant and that the father was responsible for the pregnancy.
Needman was reported to have replaced his deceased wife with his daughter on his matrimonial bed. While the 14-year-old girl, who was in Junior Secondary School 3, was sleeping on the bed with her father, her two younger brothers were made to sleep on the floor