Mr Adebisi Arewa, a parent who accused a private school teacher, Adewale Bakare, of sexually abusing his nine-year-old daughter has given reasons why his daughter shunned recent forensic interviews.
He noted that decision to conduct fresh forensic interviews was ill-advised and precipitous.
The PUNCH had reported that Bakare’s lawyer, Toyin Taiwo-Ojo, had during a protest at the Lagos State Police Command Headquarters complained that Arewa refused to produce his daughter for fresh forensic tests.
The lawyer had alleged that Arewa did that to obstruct the cause of justice and ensured that Bakare stayed longer in Kirikiri prison where he’s being remanded.
But Arewa said the teacher’s family, school, non-governmental organisations and old students are spreading false information about him and his daughters.
According to him, some forces want to “detain my ward pursuant to taking them into the custody of the state government”.
Arewa said, “The survivor has been subjected to numerous ‘forensic interviews’ everywhere I was directed to take her, without my consent, beginning from Mirabel Centre and Domestic Violence Unit of the Lagos State Ministry of Justice; Ilupeju Division of the Nigerian Police Force and the Gender Unit of the Lagos State Police Command.
“All these interviews met the requirements of ‘forensic interviews’ because they were done in camera without my being in the same room with the survivor.
“The most crucial of such forensic interview instigated by the forces seeking to still the voice of a voiceless child was that conducted by the Magistrate. She sat in a family court alongside a battery of two other experienced family lawyers, with a game plan to take custody of the survivor and her sibling from me.
“We were all instructed to vacate her office where the proceeding took place, whereupon the survivor was again subjected to gruelling grilling by the Magistrates.
“It was on the bases of those findings with the medical report that the court did not do the bidding of those forces to summarily detain my ward pursuant to taking them into the custody of the state government.
“That ‘forensic interviews’ in itself is riddled with pitfalls, inadequacies and inanities too numerous to do an exhaustive list; it will however suffice to mention its most critical flaws.”
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