Olaleye’s trial: There was forceful penetration, injury in minor’s private organ, says witness

By Yetunde Ayobami Ojo

05 January 2023   |   3:38 am

A medical doctor in Family Medicine, at the Lagos State University Teaching Hospital (LASUTH), Dr. Akinbunmi Oyebimpe, yesterday, told a Lagos Special Sexual Offences Court , that there was repeated forceful penetrative injury into the vagina of the minor in the case of the Lagos doctor who abused his wife’s niece.

 
Oyebimpe disclosed this in an ongoing trial of Dr. Olufemi Olaleye, the medical doctor of Optimal Cancer Care Foundation, Lagos, for alleged defilement of his wife’s niece before Justice Rahmon Oshodi.
   
The state government had filed a two-count charge bordering on having unlawful sexual intercourse and sexual assault by penetrating the survivor’s mouth with his penis.
   
His offences contravened Sections 137 and 261 of the Criminal Laws of Lagos State, 2015.
At the resumed hearing of the matter, the fourth prosecution witness, Oyebimpe , who was led-in- evidence by the Director of Public Prosecution (DPP), Dr. Babajide Martins, told  the court how survivor told her history of repeated sexual abuse since 2020.
   
In her evidence, the medical doctor told the court that she works at Mirabel Centre where the survivor was examined following a referral from the police.
   
She said the medical examination carried out on the 15-year-old girl revealed that she had been sexually abused.
   
She said she personally carried out medical examination on the victim following referral from the Gender Section of the Lagos State Police Command, Headquarters, Ikeja, explaining that the victim was referred to the centre together with a complaint of repeated sexual abuse since March 2020 by her aunt’s husband, Dr. Olaleye.
“Based on history provided by the survivor and medical examination of the victim, the major findings was in the genital area. The hymen was angular, which means ring-shaped and slightly estrogenised.
 
“There was a notch at 9 ‘O’ clock position on the hymen and transection at one ‘O’ clock position at the hymen. The vaginal was also unduly visible, more than one-third of the lower vagina. These are my findings.

“The pattern of injury that I saw where consistent with repeated forceful penetrative injury into the vagina. An ongoing forceful long penetrative injury to the vagina, was what she documented and reported to the centre,” She told the court.
 
The doctor informed the court that victim told her (medical doctor) that defendant usually called her (survivor) in the middle of the night when others were sleeping to come downstairs and that he will remove his trouser and asked her to suck his penis.
 
“He sometimes also put his finger in her vagina. Then, she said he also applied something like lubricant and he will penetrate her vagina with his penis.  This she said happened about four times and also gives her pills and also threatened her that if she tells anyone she would die,” the witness added.

 
During cross-examination, the  defence counsel, Babatunde Ogala (SAN), queried the doctor’s testimony and asked: “How did you conclude that the defendant abused her?”
   
The witness responded that the survivor did not tell her the name of the defendant. She added that her client didn’t give the history of when the assault stopped.
 
When she was asked about the disparity on the time of the incidence and when it was reported in 2022, the doctor responded that, “If there is repeated vagina injury, it would give the classical feature or sign or symptom that I saw on the vagina because it has been ongoing.
 
“The victim told me that the abuse started in March 2020 and continued until the time she reported. Healing process differs in individuals and it’s based on different factors and the blood supply to the vagina is usually low.”

Earlier in the proceeding, Esther Ngozi Igbineweka, an Investigative Police Officer (IPO), with the Gender Section of the Lagos State Police Command, Headquarters, Ikeja, who investigated the defilement and sexual assault against the defendant, told the court that she got to know the defendant through a petition addressed to the section by the Commissioner of Police.
 
Ogala probed the witness on what he claimed the defendant wrote in his statement that the survivor was having sexual intercourse with one Mr. Meshach.
 
The officer said, “At that time of investigation, the said Meshach was no longer working with the Olaleyes and I asked the complainant about the effort to contact him and she said all efforts failed.”
 
Further hearing on the matter has been adjourned to January 26, 2023.