A Chief Magistrate Court, the Children, Sexual and Gender-Based Violence Court, sitting in Awka, Anambra State has sentenced one Faith Obi, aged, thirty-two, and Chinenye Obete, aged forty-one to multiple jail terms.
Faith Obi and Chinenye Obete was arraigned in Court on a-5 count charge bordering on Child Stealing, abduction of children and illegal dealing in children, fraudulently enticing away and harbouring a seven-year-old boy, and forcefully isolating the child from the lawful possession of their parents, punishable under the Criminal Code, Laws of Anambra State of Nigeria, 1991, and the Violence Against Persons (Prohibition and Protection) Laws of Anambra State, 2017 respectively.
Delivering a judgment on the case, the presiding Chief Magistrate, Genevieve Osakwe stated that the defendants had been found guilty of all the five court charges brought against them.
Magistrate Osakwe noted that based on the oral testimonies of the defendants and the submissions of the plaintiff witnesses, as well as other materials placed before the court, in respect of the case, there were overwhelming pieces of evidence against the defendants, and the prosecutor had proved his case beyond reasonable doubts.
In sentencing the defendants, His Worship, Osakwe slammed Faith Obi and Chinenye Obete, for four years imprisonment in count one, five years imprisonment in count two, five years imprisonment in count three, five years imprisonment in count four and a term of six months imprisonment in count five, and declared however, that all the sentences would run concurrently, without any option of fine.
Reacting to the news, the Anambra State commissioner for Women and Social Welfare, Mrs. Ify Obinabo, expressed satisfaction with the outcome of the court judgment and warned intending offenders to leave the state as the present Soludo led administration will not hesitate to put them where they belong.
Recall that last year, during the hearing of the case, the defendants were given a grace period of two weeks by the court to produce the stolen baby, which they were not able to do.
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