BY TIMOTHY AGBOR, OSOGBO
An Osun State High Court sitting in Osogbo has awarded the sum of N1 million as damages against Justrite shopping mall in Osogbo for wrongly accusing a customer of theft.
The court also ordered the mall to write a formal letter of apology to the female customer, Adeola Ikotun who was said to have been embarrassed and harassed by agents and staff of the mall who raised false alarm of theft on her and also searched her private part without finding any incriminating item on her.
After suffering the public ridicule on December 22, 2019, Ikotun dragged Justrite Limited to the court and demanded N10 million as damages and a public apology in two national newspapers, claiming that her character was defamed by the business outfit.
In the suit marked HOS/42/2020, the plaintiff (Ikotun) had argued that one of the female security agents of the shopping mall dipped her hand inside her private not minding that she was experiencing her (Ikotun) menstrual flow at that time.
She further asked the court to compel the defendant (Justrite Limited) to pay her the sum N180,000.00 (One Hundred and Eighty Thousand Naira) being the cost she incurred as payment for medical bills and also pleaded with the court to mandate the firm to pay her the sum of N400.000.00 (Four Hundred Thousand Naira) being cost she incurred for the prosecution of this case.
Delivering his judgement, a copy of which was obtained by The Point on Wednesday, the presiding judge, S. O. Falola, held that Ikotun was defamed after the anti-theft device of the shopping mall was activated, a situation that elicited gathering of crowd around her thus making some eyewitnesses to have wrong impression about her character.
“Everything considered, I hold that the case of the Plaintiff partially succeeds and I enter Judgement as follows:
“A Declaration is hereby made that the indiscriminate and December 2019 by the Defendant’s security guards, agents, staff and assigns not being law enforcement agents is unlawful and tantamount to trespass on the Plaintiff’s person and dignity.
“An order is hereby made directing the Defendant to write a formal letter of apology to the Plaintiff within two weeks of the date of this Judgement (today).
“It is hereby declared that the act of falsely accusing the Plaintiff of stealing by the Defendant’s security guards, agents, staff and assign on the 22nd day of December, 2019 within the Defendant’s Shopping Mall premises, being a public place, without just cause is unlawful and amounts to defaming the Plaintiff’s character.
“A sum of N1,000,000.00 (One Million Naira) aggravated and general damages is awarded against the Defendant for trespassing on the person of the Plaintiff and defaming her character. Reliefs 5 and 6 are hereby refused (Payments for cost of medical bills and prosecution fee).
“It is hoped that the Defendant would use this experience to sit up, monitor her security and other devices and avoid any other negligent acts which may proof costlier in future,” Falola said.
