By Glam & Essence
The founder of iReign Christian Ministry, Pastor Feyi Daniels, has been sentenced to life imprisonment by a trial judge, Rahman Oshodi, at an Ikeja Sexual Offences and Domestic Violence court on Friday for “raping a church member”.
The Lagos-based Pastor was found guilty of raping and sexually assaulting a female worshipper in his church.
Pastor Daniels, in his own defense, testified that he believed three out of the four women who accused him of sexually assaulting them conspired to turn against him.
The prosecution’s lead counsel, Babajide Boye, while cross examining him tried to establish that the defendant, Bishop Daniels, had a ‘personal relationship’ with the four women, alleging that the defendant had counseled the women.
He alleged that Pastor Daniels counseled one of the women, gave N100,000 to another for hospital treatment, paid school fees for a third, and related with a fourth as a leader in the campus fellowship affiliated with his ministry at Akungba-Akobo in Ondo State.
Pastor Daniels denied all the allegations saying, “I believe all three ladies turned against me”.
He claimed the fourth lady later apologised to him.
When asked why the accusations from the ladies were all sexual in nature, the defendant said he didn’t know.
The Prosecutor also accused the defendant of using his position as a Pastor to manipulate persons who come to him for counseling, which Pastor Daniels denied saying, “I am not a powerful man; I am a pastor. I do not use power to counsel people; I am not a manipulator.”
The defendant also denied tampering with the WhatsApp messages between him and one of his alleged victims.
During the cross-examination, the prosecutor also sought to tender four statements purportedly written by the defendant whilst in police custody at various intervals last year, claiming that they contradict the defendant’s testimony and the contents of the documents.
“We seek to use them to impeach his testimony. We rely on section 232 of the Evidence Act, that evidence even though obtained improperly is still admissible and we urge the court to admit same,” the prosecutor said.
The defence counsel, Adebayo Adegbite, objected to the admissibility of the statements, arguing that the statements were not made by the defendant and that the Bishop signed them under duress.
“The statements are a mixture of confession and denial. We leave it to the court to determine whether they amount to a confession. Right from the start of this trial, the defendant has denied the charges, that’s his plea. The documents weren’t made voluntarily. Even if there were contradictions, he wasn’t the maker of the documents, they were written by the police,” Adegbite stated.
In his ruling, Justice Rahman Oshodi admitted the documents, while overruling the objection raised claiming that, “By section 9(3) and (4) of the Administration of Criminal Justice Law of Lagos State (2021), the presence of a video testimony of the suspect is desirable but not compulsory. I will admit the documents and later consider the evidential value to place on them”.
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