An Ogudu Magistrates’ Court in Lagos on Friday sentenced a 29-year-old man, Festus John, to 20 hours of community service for assaulting a female vendor after eating her food.
The News Agency of Nigeria (NAN) reports that John was arraigned on a count charge of assault occasioning harm.
The Magistrate, Mrs O. A. Daodu, sentenced John after police investigations had revealed that he beat up the complainant because she accosted him on refusing to pay N500 for the food he had eaten.
Daodu, thereafter, ordered that the convict be cautioned and discharged after he must have completed the 20-hour community service, which would be at the discretion of the officer in charge.
John was said to have been initially arraigned on Oct. 16.
Earlier, the Prosecutor, Insp Bassey Sunday, told the court that John committed the offences on Oct. 15 at Otunba Kolawole Street, Ogudu GRA phase 2, Lagos in Ikeja Magisterial District.
He said that John ate food from the complainant, a food vendor and refused to pay N500 being the amount he ate.
“The complainant held him on his cloth and demanded for her money but he slapped her and as if that was not enough, he started hitting her on her face and body.
”As a result she fell down and also sustained injuries on her face. It was with the assistance of her husband and other customers that John was arrested,” Sunday said.
According to the prosecutor, the offences contravene Sections 173 of the Criminal Law of Lagos State, 2015.
