It is the first verdict of this kind under the Modern Slavery Act, a law that aims to combat modern slavery and human trafficking.
Chief Crown Prosecutor Joanne Jakymec described the plot as “horrific,” saying that the vulnerable victim would be exploited by having his kidney removed and donated to Sonia Ekweremadu, the daughter of senator Ike Ekweremadu and his wife Beatrice Ekweremadu. The girl needed a transplant due to renal problems.
The victim, a 21-year-old male from Lagos, Nigeria’s largest city, was misled into believing that he was being brought to the U.K. to earn money for his family.
The man, who cannot be named for legal reasons, had been offered an illegal reward to become a donor for the senator’s daughter after kidney disease forced her to drop out of a master’s degree in film at Newcastle University, the court heard. Sonia Ekweremadu was found not guilty.
She cried in court as her parents were sent down from the dock.
In February 2022 the man was falsely presented to a private renal unit at Royal Free hospital in London as Sonia’s cousin in a failed attempt to persuade medics to carry out an £80,000 transplant.
For a fee, a medical secretary at the hospital acted as an Igbo interpreter between the man and the doctors to help try to convince them he was an altruistic donor, the court heard.
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