By Kamsi Anayo
A High Court sitting in Enugu, has sentenced an employee of the Central Bank of Nigeria, Jude Ozougwu and his wife, Ifeoma Ozuogu, to 13 years imprisonment for child abuse.
The convicts, who were arrested by the police in 2020, were found guilty of inflicting bodily harm on their 10-year-old home.
The convict abused the victim, identified as Nneoma Nnadi, for allegedly falling her baby at their home in Aku, Igbo-Etiti LGA of the state.
The couple were also accused of inserting pepper into the little girl’s private parts & locking her up in the toilet for refusing to wash plates.
They were arrested after neighbors raised an alarm and was subsequently arraigned before Justice A. C. Ogbuabor of State High Court 10 on three counts bordering on inflicting grievous harm, administering noxious or poisonous substance and employment of a child as a domestic worker.
Delivering judgment in the suit marked No: HE/121c/2020 between the State (Plaintiff/Applicant and Jude Ozuogu and Ifeoma Ozuogu (1 & 2 Defendants), the court convicted them.
The court condemned the treatment meted out to the 10-year-old girl, and sentenced the couple to 13 years imprisonment each.
Justice Ogbuabor convicted the couple on all three counts and sentenced them accordingly. On count one – Inflicting grievous harm, the court sentenced them to three years imprisonment.
On count two – administering a noxious or poisonous substance, the court sentenced the couple to five years imprisonment, and on count three – employment of a child as a domestic worker, the court sentenced the couple to five years imprisonment.
The court, however, ordered that the period the convicts had stayed in custody from the day of arrest should be discounted.
