A Lagos state driver, Emmanuel Okorie, has claimed that he only put his hands inside the private parts of his neighbour’s 15-year-old sister and did not rape her.

The defendant, who is standing trial before a Lagos High Court sitting in Igbosere, on Wednesday, told Justice Oluwatoyin Ipaye:

“I let her go when I discovered that she was a virgin.

“I put my hand in her vagina and when I noticed that she was a virgin, I didn’t have sex with her.”

The suspect said that the incident occurred at his elder sister’s house in Ejigbo, Lagos state.

However, the 15-year-old girl had told the Court that she and a friend, were coming back from school when the driver called her.

She said he told her to help return a bottle he bought from her aunty’s provision shop

She said the driver dragged her into his room and asked if she was a virgin.

The 15-year-old said,

“He asked me if I was a virgin, I told him I am. After a while, I saw my skirt down and wet, I saw myself on the bed after he was through with what he did, he opened the door I was crying and he started pleading with me.

“He had sex with me and I was crying and pleading that he should leave me, but he did not listen to me.

“I fell sick, I was crying and went to my friend’s mother’s shop, she asked me what happened. He was at my back begging me to stop crying.

“He was about to run away when he was apprehended.”

The case has been adjourned till July, 5, for the continuation of trial.

The defendant, who was led in trial by his counsel Mr Worer Obuagbaka, insisted that he didn’t make any confessional statement, nor told his investigative police officer that he had sex with the victim.

“This statement you are seeing was not written by me, I was not given any paper to write. l was inside the cell, when a man nicked named Sean Paul, came and brought me out to where the IPO was.

“The the next thing he did was to slap me and then I saw Inspector Amina Adeoye with an envelope and I was asked to sign.

“When I asked to read the statement, Sean Paul hit me on my forehead and I started bleeding, I did not read the statement I signed under duress.”

Lagos State Prosecutor Mr Akin George called the third prosecution witness, Inspector Amina Adeoye, who narrated how she recorded the defendant’s statement, Dailypost reports.

She also told the Court that she read the statement Okorie made at Ejigbo, where he denied committing the offence, adding that she did not force him, to sign the statement.

She said,

“On December 1, 2015, a case of defilement was transferred from Ejigbo Police Station to State Criminal Investigation Department SCID, Panti Yaba, and the victim that was defiled was 15-year-old then.”

“I took the statement of the victim and after the defendant’s statement had been taken, we had to refer the victim to Mirabel Center at Lagos University Teaching Hospital LASUTH, she was treated and the report was sent to our office.

“He wrote the statement that the girl and her friend were actually coming back from school when the incident occurred.”

The defendant was first arraigned on a count charge of defilement on December 14, 2015, at Yaba Magistrate’s Court.

He was alleged to have committed the offence on November 26, 2015, he was also arraigned before the High Court in April 2017.