A Lagos medical doctor Olufemi Olaleye who was sentenced to life imprisonment for allegedly raping his wife’s 15-year-old niece has been given back his life after the Court of Appeal in Lagos acquitted and discharged him from the crime, which sparked a public outrage in 2022.
Dr. Olaleye who is the Medical Director of Optimal Cancer Care Foundation, was sentenced by the Lagos State Sexual Offences and Domestic Violence Court on October 10, 2023, after the prosecution convinced the court Dr. Olaleye committed the crime.
But the Court of Appeal judges faulted the conviction of Dr. Olaleye stating in their ruling read by Justice Olukayode Bada that the trial court erred in convicting Dr Olaleye based on “tainted” and ‘unreliable’ evidence of his estranged wife, Oluremi and the alleged survivor.
The appellate court agreed with the submissions of Olaleye’s lead counsel, Kemi Pinheiro SAN, who insisted that there were material contradictions in the evidence gathered by the prosecutions which should not have been relied on by the lower court.
The court also faulted some other parts of the evidence of the prosecution during the trial, which was from a child forensic specialist, a medical doctor from the Mirabel centre and the investigating officer, which were found to be “worthless.”
In the judgment, the court of appeal also queried why the prosecution failed to present material witnesses such as two family members who were said to have witnessed the appellant’s alleged confession.
The court added that a trial within trial ought to have been conducted during the trial to verify the voluntariness of the appellant’s confessional statements while he was in police custody, especially as he said he made it under duress after he had been detained for six days.
