OGUN, Nigeria, September 4 (The Informant247) – Pastor Israel Adebayo, the General Overseer of The Beloved Chapel, Agbado Ogun State, has revealed to the police that he had carnal knowledge of a 14-year-old member of the church’s choir.
The pastor said he did not know how it occurred.
The 38-year-old pastor was apprehended by the police after the mother of the victim reported at Agbado Divisional Police Headquarters.
The mother has reported to the police that the pastor of the church, located at 9, Iyaniwura street, off Owonikoko Street Agbado, deceived her daughter into his room and forcefully had carnal knowledge of her when she travelled to treat herself of a certain ailment.
The Ogun State Police spokesperson, Abimbola Oyeyemi, revealed that the pastor, while being queried after his arrest, “admitted defiling the victim,” even as he “pleaded for forgiveness”.
“According to him, his family and that of the victim are so close, but he didn’t know how and why such a thing happened to him,” Oyeyemi quoted him as saying.
Investigative report revealed that the suspect would have been apprehended long ago, but the victim’s mother did not want to offend her pastor.
“But when the victim is continuously bleeding from her private part since the incident, which happened October 2021, she was left with no other option than to allow police to wade into the matter.
“The victim, who claimed that the Pastor was the first person to sleep with her,.is currently recuperating in a hospital.”
The Commissioner of Police in the State, Lanre Bankole, has directed that matter be transferred to the State CIID for further investigation and necessary prosecution.
The Commissioner of Police has sent message of warning to parents to stop the habit of protecting anybody who has sexually assaulted their daughters no matter how important the person is to the parents, stressing that they too may be liable for prosecution for compounding felony.