Assault: Absence of Defence Witness Stalls Hearing in Suit Against Police Officer, Father

The hearing in a N50 million damages suit against a Police Officer, DSP Ibrahim Kawu and his father, Audu, over assault on Elder Olusegun Otolorin, was, on Friday, stalled in an Ibadan High Court due to absence of defence witness.
The Defence Counsel, Richard Ogunwole, SAN, told the court that the subpoenaed witness, Oniwinde Folorunsho, was unable to appear before the court due to an official assignment.
Ogunwole informed the court that his witness, who is a police officer, had an assignment at the Police Headquarters, Eleyele, Ibadan, and could, therefore, not appear in court.
He prayed the court to grant him an adjournment.
The Claimant’s Counsel, Mrs Omobolaji Babadiya, did not oppose the application for an adjournment.
Justice Ganiyu Sunmonu, thereafter, adjourned the case till November 27, for continuation of hearing.
The claimant, through his counsel, had informed the court that the defendants and their thugs brutalised and inflicted injuries on him and his friends over a landed property.
Babadiya told the court that the defendants and their thugs violently attacked her client with an iron rod and stick, and stabbed him with broken bottles.
She said her client would have been lynched, if not for the protection given to him by the police from Akobo Police Station in Ibadan.
Babadiya said the incident happened on March 26, 2014 at Km. 147 on the Iwo road-Ojoo expressway, Alagbayun area of Ibadan.
She urged the court to declare the action of the defendants as wrongful, unconstitutional and a violation of the rights of her client.
Babadiya also urged the court to award the sum of N50 million as damage against the defendants.