Olayomi Adegbite, who allegedly paraded himself as a lawyer at a Lagos magistrate’s court in Ogba has been arrested after appeared as a counsel, applying for the bail of a defendant arraigned in court for stealing.
He was caught after a presiding magistrate of Court 5 where the defendant was arraigned observed flaws in his presentation.
The magistrate, Mrs. Temitope Oladele was said to have invited him to her office for questioning upon which it was discovered that he was never called to the bar.
A lawyer at the court, who spoke on condition of anonymity, said he had warned Adegbite on several occasions of the consequences of his action, but he refused.
“He started coming to the court in December. He would dress as a lawyer and walk around to assist defendants to perfect their bails. He was working with a lawyer. I approached him to stop parading himself as a lawyer, but he was furious with me.
“On February 24, 2017, he appeared at Court 5 to hold brief for the lawyer in a case of stealing. When the magistrate noticed that he could not apply for the defendant’s bail, she summoned him to her chambers,” he said.
He was subsequently arrested by policemen from the Ikeja division and brought to Court 4 on Thursday by a police prosecutor, Sergeant Raphael Donny, on one count of impersonation.
The defendant pleaded guilty to the charge.The presiding magistrate, Mrs. Davies Abegunde, consequently sentenced him to 100 hours of community service across magistrates’ courts in Lagos, except Ikorodu, Epe and Badagry magistrates’ courts.
The magistrate added that he should place placards with inscriptions, ‘I am a fake lawyer,’ on his front and back while cleaning the courts.
[Punch]
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