An Edo magistrate court on Thursday sentenced a 52-year-old herbalist to 21-year jail term for raping and impregnating his 17-year old daughter.
The Presiding Magistrate, however sentenced the convict to five years on the first count of possession of fetish wrap of Gift’s pubic hair; two years for raping and impregnating her and 14 years for repeated sexual assault.
Earlier, the prosecution told the court that the convict raped his daughter, Gift, at their home in Ososo village, Akoko-Edo.
He said the convict who turned his daughter to a sex slave for several years, also instructed her never to sleep with any other man.
He averred that aside from raping the 17-year-old girl repeatedly and impregnating her, he procured abortion for her and shaved the hair in her private parts.
He further averred that the convict impregnated the now deceased raped victim for a second time before the matter came to public knowledge and subsequently arrested by the police and arraigned in court.
The prosecution said the pregnant girl however died along with four others in an auto-crash along Benin-Auchi highway, while traveling from Ososo to Benin on the way to the court.
He listed among the dead to include the raped victim, her uncle, two workers of BraveHeart Initiative, a non-governmental organisation, helping Gift with the case, and the cab driver.
But after learning of the auto crash, Jacob who had earlier pleaded guilty to the counts against him and was about to be sentenced, changed his plea on the day his daughter and the others died.
