therefore unnecessary to establish the offence of rape (OGUNBAYO v. THE STATE (2007) 8 NWLR 157). Now, the accused made two statements to the police; the one was a pure confession of the offence of rape, but was rejected by the Court because of non compliance with the mandatory provisions of section 31(2) of the Evidence Act. The statement not having been recorded or read back to the accused in the presence of an Independent Witness as required by law. The other was an admission which was admitted in evidence for what it is worth. Having referred myself to section 180 (2) (a) of the evidence Act on the need for corroboration in sexual offence cases, and having further reminded myself that the only direct evidence before the Court is the evidence of the child witness; which equally requires corroboration, I have noted that the prosecutrix could not complete her oral testimony before the Court as she became too shy at one point to further her testimony. Her evidence was therefore, not tested. And the law is that a Court cannot rely on the untested evidence of a witness. I accordingly discard the evidence of the prosecutrix in its entirety. The absence of the victim's evidence may not be necessarily fatal to the prosecution case as an accused can be convicted of the crime based on the testimony of witnesses other than the victim . Her inability to testify therefore, should not absolved the offence where there is credible evidence to support the commission of the crime. 4