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Thursday 7 May 2015

Modern Day Slavery: UK Doctor and his Wife 'Kept Nigerian Man as Slave for 24-Years at Their London Home

Dr Emmanuel Edet, right,  and his wife Antan, left, are accused of keeping Ofonime Sunday Inuk at their home in Perivale, north-west London for 24 years after it is alleged they smuggled him in to Britain as a child
Mr and Mrs Edet, a doctor and nurse from Perivale, confiscated the passport of Ofonime Sunday Inuk's on bringing him to Britain as a child and controlled every aspect of his life in London "down to his very name", prosecutors told Harrow Crown Court.

The NHS doctor enslaved the man in their home for 24 years after smuggling him into Britain as a child..
Emmanuel Edet demanded to be called ‘master’ as he beat his victim and subjected him to a ‘life of misery’, it was claimed.
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.
Yesterday Mr Inuk, 39, confronted the pair for the first time since allegedly escaping their West London home in 2013.
Antan Edet
He told a jury at Harrow Crown Court 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.’ 


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, it is alleged.
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. 
On trial: Mr Inuk's alleged captors were charged after an investigation by Scotland Yard's Human Trafficking Unit. Both pleaded not guilty to holding a person in slavery and servitude and assisting unlawful immigration
On trial: Mr Inuk's alleged captors were charged after an investigation by Scotland Yard's Human Trafficking Unit. Both pleaded not guilty to holding a person in slavery and servitude and assisting unlawful immigration

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.’
At one stage he tried to undertake a college course in computer skills but the Edets stopped him, it is claimed. Mr Smart said: ‘When he did not meet their exacting standards, they hit him and punched him – he recalls this particularly clearly in relation to his trying to apply for college.’
Mr Inuk did seek help but was turned away by police who simply recorded his case as a lost passport, and by social services who said they could not help because he was an adult.
The Edets deny cruelty to a person under 16, slavery and assisting unlawful immigration.
The case continues. 


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