ELIAS, C.J.N. (Delivering the Leading Judgment) This is an appeal by the Director of Public Prosecutions of the North-Western State (herein Prosecutor/Appellant) from the judgment of M. Muhammed, J., in the High Court at Sokoto in which, on June 29, 1971, he convicted Hassan Audu, aged 39 years (herein Respondent), of rape committed against Inno Garba, then aged 9 years, contrary to Section 283 of the Penal Code, and sentenced the said Hassan Audu to a term of imprisonment for 3 years to which he added the qualification that it should be suspended for the same period.
The facts of the case, according to the prosecution, were that the girl in the course of her hawking mangoes visited the room of the accused at the Coca Railway Running Shed quarters in Gusau on May 23, 1970; that the accused promised to buy all her mangoes if she would go into bed with him which she did; that the accused then took off his clothes, went into bed with her and had sexual intercourse with her, in the course…