Pastor pleads for forgiveness after defiling 14-year-old chorister

According to the police, the victim's mother was initially reluctant to file a report against Israel Adebayo because she didn't want to anger her pastor.

The General Overseer of The Beloved Chapel in Ogun, Israel Adebayo, has begged for forgiveness after being detained for defiling a 14-year-old church choir member at Agbado, in the state's Ifo Local Government Area.

Adebayo was apprehended as a result of a complaint made by the victim's mother, according to SP Abimbola Oyeyemi, the Ogun Police Public Relations Officer (PPRO), who made the announcement of the cleric's arrest.

Oyeyemi noted in a statement to the public that the victim's mother initially hesitated to report the suspect to the police because she didn't want to anger her pastor.

The statement read: “Upon the report, the DPO Agbado Division detailed his detectives to the scene where the pastor was promptly arrested. On interrogation, the pastor, who admitted defiling the victim, pleaded for forgiveness.

“According to him, his family and that of the victim are so close, but he didn’t know how and why such a thing happened to him.

“Preliminary investigation revealed that the suspect would have been arrested long ago, but the mother of the victim frustrated the move because she doesn’t want to offend her pastor.

“But when the victim was continuously bleeding from her private parts since the incident which happened in October 2021, she was left with no other option than to inform the police. The victim claimed that the pastor was the first person to sleep with her. She is currently recuperating in a hospital.”

The state's commissioner of police, Lanre Bankole, had also ordered that the case be transferred to the State Criminal Investigation Department (SCID) for additional investigation and legal action, according to the Ogun PPRO.