2015 –
A Nigerian doctor and his nurse wife have been jailed for enslaving a man for almost 25 years after illegally bringing him to Britain.
Former NHS obstetrician Emmanuel Edet, 61, and midwife Antan Edet, 58, kept fellow Nigerian Ofonime Sunday Inuk as a “houseboy” after telling immigration officials he was their teenage son.
After they arrived in the UK in 1989, Mr Inuk worked without pay for up to 17 hours a day, looking after the couple’s two sons as well as cooking, cleaning and gardening.
He was also forced to sleep on a hall floor for long periods of time during his time being held.
Mr Inuk eventually managed to alert a charity to his plight after the couple, who lived in London, went to Nigeria for Christmas in 2013 and they were arrested the following March.
Sentencing the couple at Harrow Crown Court today Judge Graham said their treatment of Mr Inuk, now 40, left him “conditioned” to his plight.
Judge Arran said: “He was conditioned to the extent that that he did not ask for what he wanted because he expected his request to be refused. He was paid the occasional pocket money of perhaps £10. He claims that that was only at Easter and Christmas and occasionally visitors would give him larger sums.
A foam bed at the house where Mr Inuk was enslaved / Metropolitan Police
“He most certainly was not paid for the work that he was performing for you.
“The most serious aspect of your behaviour towards him was that it went on for an exceptionally long period of time, robbing him of the opportunity of leading a normal life.
The court heard that the sum he was in theory owed for his years of work ran into hundreds of thousands of pounds.
Dr and Mrs Edet, from Perivale, north west London, were found guilty by a jury last month of cruelty to a child under 16, servitude and assisting unlawful immigration.
They remained impassive as the sentences were handed down today.
The couple were jailed for three years for child cruelty, six for servitude and one for the immigration offence, all to run concurrently. They will each serve a total of six years in prison.
Couple convicted of keeping Nigerian man as slave for 24 years
Although their mistreatment of Mr Inuk spanned 24 years, illegal servitude only became an offence under the Coroners and Justice Act 2009 so they were convicted and sentenced for their actions only between 2010 and 2013. However, Judge Arran said he considered the total length of time Mr Inuk suffered as an aggravating feature.
Mr Inuk told the trial his passport was confiscated and he was told that if he left the house he would be deported as an illegal immigrant.
The gently spoken Mr Inuk, who gave his evidence from behind a screen so he could not see his tormentors, said the Edets changed his name and added him to their family passport as their son when they first brought him to the UK in 1989 via Israel, aged around 13 or 14.
He had agreed to go with them because he believed he would be paid and educated.
He lived with them at several locations including in London and Walsall, West Midlands, and kept a diary in which he catalogued his treatment at the hands of people he called “sir” and “ma”.
The prosecution said Mr Inuk became so dependent on the Edets he felt he had no choice but to stay with them.
But he made several attempts to try to break away, telling the jury he spoke to a family friend, an MP, and was left feeling “a bit dejected ” when he tried to report the Edets to the police in around 2005 only to be told they could not help as it was a “family matter”.
The sentencing heard that Dr Edet also worked as a teenage pregnancy advisor for Surrey Council and for a drug safety research unit in Southampton.
Barristers for both the Edets argued that they suffered ill health.
Dr Edet’s assets totalled around £30,00 including a house in Nigeria, while Mrs Edet, who worked as a £27,000-a-year NHS ward sister until she was arrested, had no assets.
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The Harrow Crown Court in northwest London, has convicted a British couple who were found guilty of keeping a Nigerian immigrant enslaved for more than two decades.
Photo Below Evil Edets
Damaris Lakin, the Crown Prosecution Service, said on Wednesday in London that Emanuel Edet, 61, and Antan Edet, 58, held their victim captive from the time he was brought to Britain when he was 14 years old.
The prosecutors said the couple was convicted on charges of child cruelty, slavery and assisting in illegal immigration.
He said the couple forced him to work for no pay and threatened him with deportation if he tried to escape.
Mr. Lakin said the Edets had told the teen when they brought him from Nigeria in 1989 that they would pay him and provide him with an education.
The prosecutors said instead, the victim, now 40, was forced to cook, clean, garden and care for the couple’s children without any pay for up to 17 hours a day.
“He got no education and had only very limited contact with his family and the outside world.
“The couple took his passport, and he had no identity documents, and is forced to eat alone and typically slept on hallway floors,’’ the prosecutors said.
Mr. Lakin said the Edets told their captive he would be arrested as an illegal immigrant and deported if he left the house and contacted police.