Samuel Ese A 41-year-old man, Baridapsi Needam, has been sentenced to 17 years in prison by a Bayelsa State High Court sitting in Yenagoa for raping and impregnating his daughter. Sunday Special gathered that the victim gave birth to a baby girl while the trial was pending. Needman, who hails from Ogani Wily Kaira Community in Ogoni, Rivers State, was reported to the police by members of the state gender advocacy group, Gender Response Initiative Team in 2022 when a concerned neighbour noticed that the victim was five months pregnant amidst suspicion that the father was responsible for the pregnancy.
The convict was said to have started sexually molesting his 14-year-old daughter who was in JSS3, shortly after his wife’s demise and forced her to sleep with him on his matrimonial bed, while her two younger brothers were made to sleep on the floor. Needam, in the suit numbered YHC/14C/2022, was charged with rape contrary to Section 1(1) of the Violence Against Persons (Prohibition) Law of Bayelsa State, 2021. The State Prosecuting Counsel and Deputy Director in the Bayelsa State Ministry of Justice, Pere Amanda Egbuson, told the court that investigations revealed that the accused began defiling his daughter when she was seven.
He said the accused started by inserting his fingers into the vagina of the victim until he began having sex with her in 2020 before she got pregnant in 2022. The presiding judge, D. E.
Adokeme, in delivering the judgement said the prosecution led credi.
