British-Nigerian convict flees UK after mistaken prison release

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A British-Nigerian man, Ifedayo Adeyeye, who was serving a jail term in the United Kingdom for abducting his son, has fled the country after being mistakenly released from prison.

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At the resumption of hearing on Monday, the court was told that HMP Pentonville failed to notify police of the accidental release, giving Adeyeye a three-day head start before a manhunt was announced by Scotland Yard.

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According to The Telegraph UK on Tuesday, a judge had earlier ruled in June that Adeyeye had abducted his son from his mother, Claire N’Djosse, in France and taken him to Nigeria via the UK.

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The boy, Laurys Adeyeye, was said to have been born in France and had lived with his mother since birth.

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The court further heard that July 27, 2024, the day of the abduction, was the first time he (Laurys) stayed overnight with his father.

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After failing to return the child as ordered by the UK court, Adeyeye was arrested on his return to the UK and jailed for six months in January for contempt of court.

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He was later handed an additional 12-month sentence on April 20 for again failing to facilitate the child’s return to his mother.

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However, he was reportedly mistakenly released the following day “after details of the new prison sentence were not passed to the officers responsible for authorising his release.”

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Following the error, the court was said to have allowed reporting of the case at a hearing on May 1, where the court criticised an “alarming lack of urgency” from prison officials.

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The judge also warned that the incident might have been prevented if police had been informed immediately, stating, “If the police had been contacted immediately, this could perhaps, almost certainly perhaps, have been prevented. The public is entitled to expect far better than this.”

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At Monday’s hearing, the court was told Adeyeye might have fled to Spain shortly after his release and believed to have left the UK on April 22.

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“The Metropolitan Police recognises both the seriousness of this matter and how traumatic the present situation must be for both [Ms N’Djosse] and her son,

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“We are using the powers at our disposal to pursue all reasonable lines of enquiry to locate and arrest [Adeyeye] and will continue to do so diligently and expeditiously,” the police told the court on Monday.

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The Telegraph UK further reported that the case wass part of a wider pattern of prison errors, with Ministry of Justice data showing 179 inmates were mistakenly released between April 2025 and March 2026.

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A similar incident involving convict of Nigerian root occurred in November last year, when a man, Ola Abimbola, who was serving a 21-year sentence for kidnapping in the United Kingdom, reportedly walked out of HMP Ford at about 8am on October 10, just a month after being transferred to the facility.

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At the time, Sussex Police said it was working to locate him but had not been successful in tracing his whereabouts in Sussex, UK.

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