By Mark Erabor
BENIN-CITY/Nigeria: Mobile Court sitting in Uselu, Egor Local Government Area of Edo on Saturday sentence two traders to community service as punishment for displaying their wares in an unauthorised place.
The court also ordered a driver, who parked his vehicle in an unauthorised place (illegal parking), to pay N10, 000 fine as an option to community service.
The Prosecuting Counsel, Mrs Patience Ehigiamusoe said that the traders and the driver who were apprehended at the Ugbowo and Uselu axis of the state, said they committed the offences and accordingly urged the court to try and sentence them.
Consequently, the Presiding Chief Magistrate, Mr Mutairu Oare, pronounced them guilty and sentenced them accordingly.
He directed the convicts to cut grasses at unused government house gate on Golf Road, GRA in Benin for one hour for three days as community services as their punishment.
Oare held that the sentence was meted out in compliance with the State Government’s non-custodial regulation.
The chief magistrate however, gave the convicted traders an option to pay fine of N3, 000 and ordered that the vehicles be impounded until the convicted driver paid N10,000 fine.
He held that officers at the correctional centres should supervise the convicts to serve out their punishment if they failed to pay the prescribed fines.
