A Nigerian couple living in the United Kingdom will be sentenced today by Harrow Crown Court after being convicted of keeping another Nigerian as a slave for 24 years.
Emmanuel and Antan Edet were found guilty of taking Ofonime Sunday Inuk to the UK in 1989 when he was only 14 years old and keeping him in dehumanising conditions for 24 years.
While Emmanuel is a doctor, his wife is a nurse, and both lived in an apartment in Perivale, North West London.
The couple was said to have promised to give Inuk a UK education before taking him to the UK, but he was made to do ungodly chores without pay, take care of the couple’s two children who are now adults and forbidden to talk to strangers or he would be arrested as an illegal immigrant and deported.
Emmanuel, 61, and Antan, 58, reportedly kept Inuk’s passport from him and severed his links with his family back in Nigeria.
While the couple claimed he was their “adopted son”, he was made to sleep in a bed on the floor under the staircase though the couple had a 4-bedroom apartment.
Also, when police raided their home after Inuk lodged a complaint through a rights organisation, over 800 pictures of the couple’s children were found while just four of Inuk’s could be found.
Even in one of the four, he was seen paddling the boat on a vacation that the family embarked upon, in one of the few occasions he was allowed to go with them, the court heard.
At a court hearing on Tuesday, the couple were found guilty of child cruelty, slavery and assisting unlawful immigration.
The sentencing is scheduled for today.