An Nigeria doctor and his wife in the United Kingdom enslaved
a man in his home for 24 years after smuggling him into
Britain as a child, a court heard on Wednesday.
Edet, 60, and his wife, Antan, 58, a senior hospital nurse, are
accused of stripping Ofonime Inuk of his passport and making
him work up to 17 hours a day.
The Nigerian orphan was left to bring up their two sons as
they travelled across Britain working for a series of NHS
trusts.
On Wednesday, Mr Inuk, 39, confronted the pair for the first
time since allegedly escaping their West London home in
2013.
He told a jury at Harrow Crown Court in UK he had to sleep
on the floor and was barred from using many rooms except to
clean them.
He described how he was scared of the couple after realising
they would not pay him or send him to school. In a soft voice,
he said he was not ‘free’, adding: "I could only take the
children to the park, that was the only time I could take them
out."
In a police interview, he said he was known as a ‘house boy’,
adding: "My role is to stay in the house ... I always do
everything in the house, sir … clean, cook, wash car, the
gardening, ironing … or maybe like a slave. That’s called
slavery."
Dr Edet, an obstetrician and gynaecologist, and his wife are
being prosecuted under modern anti-slavery legislation.
The jury was told Mr Inuk escaped after hearing about another
case in the media while the couple travelled to Nigeria for
Christmas. He contacted a charity which tipped off police who
were stunned to find him alone in their £450,000 four-
bedroom terrace home in Perivale, monitored by a CCTV
camera.
He told them his ordeal began when he was taken under the
wing of the Edet family aged 12. He was the oldest of eight
children. His family had fallen into poverty when his father
died and he willingly went to work for the Edets in Lagos,
Nigeria, being paid £2 or £3 a month.
A short time later, the family moved to Israel and then, when
he was 14, to Britain. They brought him into the country by
changing his name to their surname and falsely adding him to
their passports.
They stayed at addresses, including hospital accommodation,
in Chatham, Scarborough, Walsall and London.
Roger Smart, prosecuting, said Mr Inuk slept on the kitchen
floor on a dirty foam mattress thrown out by a hospital. He
was expected to get up first and begin cleaning the house, but
was told to sweep instead of using a vacuum cleaner because
it was too noisy.
Mr Inuk was also forced to wash clothes by hand because the
Edets said it was too expensive to run the washing machine.
He always ate by himself, kept his few possessions in a single
bag and was not allowed to sit in the front room or go
upstairs.
Mr Smart said the couple "to all intents and purposes owned
him, controlling nearly every aspect of his life down to his very
name.
"Over a period in excess of 20 years, they have deprived him of
his identity, his rights to education and freedom of movement
and the money he should have received. He has no means of
returning to Nigeria. He was entirely dependent on them."
Story credit: Kemas Osuji
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