Baridapsi Needam, 41, was found guilty of raping and impregnating his daughter and was given a 14-year prison sentence by the Bayelsa State High Court, which is based in Yenagoa.
While the trial was ongoing, the victim gave birth to a girl, according to information obtained by Obasanjonews.com.
Under Section 1(1) of the Violence Against Persons (Prohibition) Law of Bayelsa State, 2021, the accused was charged with rape in the lawsuit YHC/14C/2022 by Attorney General Biriyai Dambo and the Commissioner of Justice for the state of Bayelsa.
Investigations showed that the accused started defiling his daughter when she was seven years old by sticking his fingers in her vagina. He then began having sex with her in 2020 and continued until she became pregnant in 2022, according to State Prosecuting Counsel and Deputy Director of the Bayelsa State Ministry of Justice, Pere Amanda Egbuson, who testified in court.
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The prosecution offered substantial evidence, according to Justice D.E. Adokeme, the presiding court, who also mentioned the DNA results, which showed a 99.99 percent positive report that the offender is the child’s father.
Needam received a 14-year prison sentence after the court determined that the prosecution had established, beyond a reasonable doubt, that he had committed the crime of rape.
Lead prosecutor Pere Amanda Egbuson said in a statement following the verdict that the ruling will serve as a deterrent to others because it sends a clear message that the court will not stand for such horrible conduct.
The state gender advocacy group Gender Response Initiative Team, or GRIT, reported the convict, Baridapsi Needman, to the police in 2022 after a concerned neighbour noticed that the victim was five months pregnant and that the father was the one responsible for the pregnancy. Baridapsi Needman is from Ogani Wily Kaira Community in Ogoni in Rivers State.
It was said that Needman had put his daughter on his marriage bed in place of his late wife. Her two younger brothers were forced to sleep on the floor, while the fourteen-year-old daughter, who was enrolled in Junior Secondary School 3, slept on the bed alongside her father.
