A JobCentre fraud investigator who kept a young Nigerian woman as a slave for more than a decade apologised to her as she was jailed for 30 months.
Afolake Adeniji, 50, flew Iyabo Prosper from Nigeria to London in 2003 when she was 13, offering her an education and a chance to escape poverty.
But Iyabo was woken at 5.30am each morning to cook and clean for Adeniji’s family and look after her children, often working for 16 hours a day.
Southwark crown court heard that Iyabo was left miserable, depressed and contemplating suicide after years as a “house girl” under Adeniji.
Adeniji, who lost her job as a senior fraud investigator for the Department for Work and Pensions, based at a Plaistow JobCentre, when the criminal case came to light, collapsed and let out a long wail as she was sentenced on Friday. She had insisted during her trial that Iyabo was lying and had been welcomed into her family, but at the sentencing hearing she apologised for forcing her into slavery.
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