A Birmingham Crown Court
handed down the sentence after he was found guilty of the offence.
The Nigerian pastor,
Michael Oluronbi, has been jailed for 34 years in the United Kingdom for
defiling children and sexual assault.
Oluronbi, 60 was convicted
of raping some children for a period of 20 years. He was said to have committed
the act during religious bathing rituals he claimed would wash their sins away
and cleanse them from evil spirits.
His wife Juliana Oluronbi,
who arranged abortions after four girls became pregnant, was jailed for 11
years.
Both were found guilty by
jurors at Birmingham Crown Court after a trial in January, BBC reports.
The trial heard Oluronbi
had victims stand naked in a bowl of water to undergo what he called “spiritual
bathing”.
He claimed it would cleanse
their souls and protect them from the devil.
But Philip Bradley QC,
prosecuting, told the trial Oluronbi’s true purpose “was to serve his sexual
gratification”.
In some cases, he added,
the offending “progressed to repeated rapes, on many occasions leading to
unwanted pregnancies and terminations”.
Oluronbi was arrested at
Birmingham Airport last May, while trying to leave the country for Nigeria.
The defendant, of Orchard
Drive, Longbridge, told police “the devil made me do it” after his arrest.
Judge Sarah Buckingham,
sentencing, said Oluronbi’s crimes “must be one of the worst cases of sexual
abuse of multiple children to come before the courts”.
“You did this because you
are an arrogant, selfish and vain man,” she said.
In statements read to the
court one of the victims, now in her thirties, said Oluronbi had “taken my
innocence, my youth and my purity as a child”.
Another said: “I used to
eat soap until I was physically sick so I could get rid of this man’s mark on
me inside and out”.
A third woman said she no
longer attended church.
“I don’t think I can ever
place my faith in religion again. I trusted him”, she said, “because he was
like God on earth.”
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