A Nigerian-British man kidnaps his son
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A Nigerian-British man kidnaps his son
British authorities have launched a manhunt for a Nigerian-British man accused of kidnapping his five-year-old son from France to Nigeria after he was wrongly released from a London prison and may have fled the UK within days.Ifedayo Adeyeye, 58, was released from HMP Pentonville in London on April 21, despite being sentenced to an additional 12 months in prison just a day earlier for repeatedly defying court orders to return his son, Loris, to his mother in France.According to court proceedings reported by Sky News, Adeye spent hours “wandering” in London after his release, enjoying dinner and drinks in a pub before flying to Spain the next day.
The prison blunder was reportedly not reported to police until three days later, drawing sharp criticism from the court.High Court judge Mr Hayden described the order as a shocking failure of the state and said prison authorities had shown a “worrying lack of urgency”.The judge said: “If the police had been contacted immediately, it would have been possible, and perhaps almost certain, to have prevented this. The public are entitled to expect much better.”
A child was kidnapped during the first night
The case centers on Loris Ndjosi Adeyeye, a five-year-old boy born in France to parents Adeyeye and Claire Ndjosi, a Cameroonian national.The couple met in Grenoble in 2020 and later split. After DNA tests confirmed that Adi was Loris’s biological father, a French court granted him supervised visitation rights while full custody remained with the mother.The problem began in July 2024 during Loris’s first night with his father.Instead of returning the child, Adeyeye allegedly took him from France to England and then to Nigeria without his mother’s consent.When Ndjosi asked for answers, Ade Aye claimed that the child had gone on a “two-week vacation” with his relatives. Investigators later discovered that he had secretly removed Loris from France.The French authorities subsequently issued an international arrest warrant against him due to allegations of child kidnapping.UK court invokes rare powersThe matter later took an unusual legal turn when England’s High Court ruled that it had the power to order the child’s return even though Loris was outside Britain.Judge Hayden noted that the case was highly unusual because it involved three countries – France, the United Kingdom and Nigeria. The court also noted that Nigeria is not a signatory to the Hague Convention on International Child Abduction, complicating efforts to secure the boy’s return.Despite this, the Supreme Court invoked its “jurisdiction” based on Loris’s British nationality and ordered Adey Aye to return the child directly to France.After repeatedly ignoring court orders, Ade Aye was imprisoned for contempt of court in January 2026 for six months. While serving this sentence, he was found guilty of further violations and was sentenced to a further 12 months in prison on 20 April.However, prison officials allegedly failed to process the new sentence in a timely manner, resulting in him being mistakenly released the next morning.
Judge describes the kidnapping as a “brutal act”
Judge Hayden described Adeyeye as “arrogant and manipulative” and “cold and calculating”, and said the kidnapping was “an act of brutality rarely seen even in this court”.“He now finds himself in a strange country, without his father or mother,” the judge said of Loris, adding that the child’s entire world had been “snatched away.”The judge also highlighted concerns raised during supervised visits in France before the kidnapping.
Staff at the call center reportedly described Ade Aye as aggressive, dismissive, and uninterested in understanding his son’s routine or emotional needs.
The suspect may have fled to Spain
During the last hearing, the Metropolitan Police told the court that Adeyeye may have traveled to Spain on April 22, one day after he was wrongly released. Spanish authorities were reportedly alerted.The court heard that prison officials blamed a “failure of communication” with the courts for their release, a claim Judge Hayden rejected as “completely baseless”.Lawyers representing Ms Ndjosi accused the British authorities of repeatedly failing the mother and child.Her lawyer, Chris Bryden, said: “Not only did the state fail her by releasing her father, they failed her by not informing the Metropolitan Police immediately.”
The court lifts anonymity to assist in the search
In a rare move, the Supreme Court allowed the identities and photographs of both Adeyeye and Lauris to be published in a bid to help trace them.Family court proceedings involving children are usually kept confidential, but the judge ruled that exceptional circumstances and the public interest justified transparency.Britain’s Ministry of Justice said it was working with police to recover Ade-Aye and acknowledged growing concerns about wrongful prisoner releases.Official data shows that 179 prisoners were wrongly released across England and Wales between April 2025 and March 2026.
