Court acquits woman of alleged patricide in A/Ibom

Isaac Job,Uyo

A high court in Akwa Ibom state has discharged and acquitted one Glory Dan, who was charged for the murder of her father, late Mr. Bassey Dan of Mbiakpan Atan Village in Ibiono Ibom Council Area of the state.

Justice Eden Akpan after going through the submissions of both the prosecution and defence counsels, concluded that there was no proof by the prosecution of the use of lethal weapon by the accused person to inflict injury on the deceased.

Delivering judgment on suit no HIT/3c/2017, he said that “I do not believe the attempt of the prosecution to infer that the cane the accused person collected from the deceased and used on him in retaliation caused the death of the deceased.”

The accused was brought before the court on May 5, 2016, when she decided to confront the father, late Mr. Bassey for allegedly been responsible for her marital problems.

It was gathered that the accused decided to attack the deceased because it was revealed to her in a dream by her late mother that her father was the one behind the death of her two husbands.

According to the statement she volunteered to the police when arrested, she had visited the father and requested that he open the door on that fateful day, but the father refused and she forcibly gained access to the house through the window, demanding to know why the father was silent about her marital problems.

It was learnt that she told the court that instead of responding to the question, the father pulled a cane he kept behind the door and flogged her.

In retaliation, the accused snatched the cane and flogged the father twice before running out of the room as the father was chasing her until she fell down at her late mother’s grave.

When the Investigating Police Officer (IPO), Insp. Gabriel Sunday visited the scene, he told the court in his evidence that there was evidence of dried blood in the room, but surprisingly, the police failed to conduct an autopsy to ascertain the cause of death.

However, the judge recalled that all the witnesses called by the prosecution never testified as eye witnesses, leaving the accused who was the only defense witness to claimed that as at the time she collected the cane, to beat her father in retaliation and left the compound, the father was not dead.

Citing many authorities, including the position of the Supreme Court in Joseph Lori & Anor vs the state (1980) NSCQR 212 at 225, where it was held that “a more useful medical evidence would not only have unequivocally established the cause of death, but may have provided the necessary nexus between the death of the victim and the act of the accused, Justice Edem concluded that the prosecution has failed to prove its case beyond reasonable doubt.

“Therefore the issues of determination are resolved in favour of the defense,” he said.