2nd May, 2012
An Ikeja High Court in Lagos today rejected the photographs of the late Titilayo Arowolo which the police took at the residence of the Arowolos a few days after her death.
The trial judge, Justice Lateefa Okunnu upheld the submission of defence counsel, Olanrewaju Ajanaku that the photographs can only be admitted as exhibits if they were presented together with the negatives.
Led in evidence by the Director of Public Prosecution, DPP, Olabisi Ogungbesan, prosecution witness number 10, Inspector Gift Nyeche from the State Criminal Investigation Department, Panti, Yaba, Lagos told the court that on 28 June, 2011, he left from Aswani Police Station to the scene of the incident.
Nyeche, the officer in charge of forensic photographic section at SCID, said he took the photograph of the car inside the house, took that of the wall leading to the kitchen that was blood soaked, a lot of flesh on the floor and the corpse of Titilayo at the Lagos State University Teaching Hospital, LASUTH, Ikeja.
But as the prosecution witness sought to tender the photographs as exhibit in the case, defence counsel, Ajanaku objected, arguing that since the photographs were taken with an analogue camera, they can only be tendered as exhibits if presented together with the negatives.
Justice Okunnu ruled that the photographs cannot be admitted as exhibits.
She adjourned the case till 6 and 7 June, 2012 when the police officer will bring to the court the photographs together with their negatives.
Akolade Arowolo has been standing trial for allegedly stabbing to death his banker wife, Titilayo Arowolo at their residence in Isolo, Lagos on 24 June, 2011.
The defendant denied the charge, claiming that Titilayo, mother of one, stabbed herself to death when she was possessed of a spirit and that she injured him as he tried to save her.
By Ayodeji Dedeigbo