A Lagos Domestic Violence and Sexual Offences Court, Ikeja, yesterday, sentenced a 35 -year-old native doctor, Prince Tom to life imprisonment life for rape and kidnapping.

 
Justice Abiola Sholadoye, in her judgment, found Tom guilty of kidnapping and raping an underage girl (name withheld) and sentenced him to life imprisonment concurrently.
 
The judge described him (Tom) as a toxic being whose attitude even in the dock is wicked and deadly.
 
“I am convinced that the accused is guilty of the two- counts charge,” the judge said.
 
The state government had filed two-count charges against the convict for raping and kidnapping.
  
Justice Sholadoye held that the evidence of PW 1 (the victim) had remained constant, stating that it is the fact because it is an actual narration of what happened. The evidence remained unshaken even during cross-examination.
  
She further noted that the victim’s evidence were also
supported by the evidence of PW2 who happened to be the victim’s mother as well as all the other witnesses.
 
Justice Sholadoye, therefore, warned parents not to trust their children with people whom they don’t know anything about and not to trust strangers with their children.
  
She sentenced the defendant to life imprisonment for count one and life imprisonment for count two and ordered that the sentences be run concurrently.
 
During the trial, the survivor had in her testimony told the court that she met the defendant (Tom) for the first time when he came to her family to treat her father who was down with a stroke.
 
She said Tom was introduced to the family through a member of her mother’s church.
 
She said the convict had charged N25, 000 as part of the fee to treat her father and she was instructed by her mother to go with Tom to a Point of Sales (POS) to withdraw the funds.
 
The victim further told the court that she was abducted by the convict, who thereafter called her mother to demand “transport money” for her to return to her family and her mother sent N10, 000 (N5,000 in two tranches) to meet Tom’s demands.
 
According to her, she said the defendant (Tom) took her to a hotel in Mushin, Lagos, where he defiled her at gunpoint and fell asleep afterwards leaving, the room key on the bed.
 
The teenager said she took the key while the suspect was asleep, escaped from the hotel room and narrated her ordeal to the hotel staff, who invited the police.