A police manhunt is underway after a man jailed for abducting his son was accidentally released from prison two weeks ago. Scotland Yard has confirmed that Ifedayo Adeyeye, 57, is feared to have fled the country after being mistakenly let go from Pentonville prison in north London.
Background of the Case
Adeyeye, a Nigerian-British national, was serving a six-month sentence for kidnapping his five-year-old son, Laurys, and taking him to Nigeria. High Court judge Mr Justice Hayden had ordered that Adeyeye serve an additional 12-month sentence after he failed to return his son to his mother in the UK. However, Adeyeye was released before he could start the new sentence due to a prison error, leaving him "unlawfully at large."
Current Situation
His whereabouts remain unknown, but it is believed his son is still in Nigeria. Judge Hayden has allowed the publication of images of Adeyeye and Laurys to assist the public in ensuring the father returns to custody. Claire Mireille N’Djosse, Laurys’s mother, has been left "devastated" by the prison's mistake, according to The Telegraph.
Judge Hayden stated, "When the state fails in the way that it has done here, there is a public interest in [her name] being put in the public domain too and in transparent terms." He added that keeping Adeyeye in custody had been "the best, perhaps only, hope for the reunification of this boy with his mother."
Details of the Abduction
Adeyeye and Ms N’Djosse were together for eight months but separated before Laurys was born in France in April 2021. In July 2024, the father was allowed for the first time to have Laurys stay with him overnight. He obtained passports and immediately took his son to England and then Nigeria. On a visit to the UK later that year, Adeyeye was arrested.
Judge Hayden explained: "Laurys remained in Nigeria, where guardianship orders were made by a Nigerian court in favour of a Nigerian family said to be Adeyeye’s relatives. I have no idea if they in fact are. Adeyeye has been entirely dishonest throughout. The orders were based on false and probably fraudulent information indicating that both parents had consented. The mother had no notice of, and no involvement in, those proceedings. Nigeria is not a signatory to the 1980 Hague Convention on International Child Abduction, and there is no treaty-based mechanism for securing Laurys’s return to France."
Prison Error and Response
The prison stated it did not receive the new 12-month warrant until 6 pm on April 20, and it was not flagged up before his release the next day. A Ministry of Justice (MoJ) spokesman commented: "We understand the distress that releases in error can cause to victims and their families and are working with the police to recapture this individual. We inherited a prison system in crisis after years of underinvestment which has resulted in unacceptable rises in releases in error. That’s why this Government is taking the bold and decisive action needed to fix it – investing up to £82m to digitise outdated paper-based systems, roll out biometrics and strengthen checks across the courts so we can drive down these mistakes and better protect the public."
A Met Police spokesperson added that the force is carrying out "urgent inquiries in an effort to locate him and return him to custody."
