By G9ija
Jude Ozuogu, a Central Bank of Nigeria (CBN) employee, and his wife, Ifeoma Ozuogu, were each given a 13-year prison sentence for child abuse by a high court in Enugu State.
The defendants, who were apprehended by the police in 2020, were found guilty of causing bodily harm to their 10-year-old domestic helper.
At their residence in Aku, Igbo-Etiti LGA of the state, the accused allegedly caused the victim’s baby to fall to the ground and then physically attacked Nneoma Nnadi.
The pair was also accused of putting the little girl in the bathroom and peppering her privates after she refused to wash the dishes.
After neighbors reported them, they were taken into custody and charged with three crimes including the infliction of great bodily damage, the administration of a poisonous or harmful drug, and the hiring of a minor as a domestic worker before Justice A. C. Ogbuabor of State High Court 10.
The court found the pair guilty and sentenced them to 13 years in jail each in the verdict delivered in the case with the case number HE/121c/2020.
The pair was found guilty on all three counts by Justice Ogbuabor, who also punished them accordingly. The court gave them a three-year prison term for count one, which involved causing great bodily harm.
The court condemned the pair to five years in jail on point two for giving a noxious or toxic substance, and to five years in prison on count three for hiring a kid as a domestic helper.
However, the court ruled that all sentences would run consecutively and that the time the convicted had been in detention since their arrest should be deducted.
