A convicted child abductor who was mistakenly released from prison enjoyed a meal at a restaurant and visited a pub before fleeing the country — while prison staff waited three days to alert police to the blunder, a High Court has heard.
Ifedayo Adeyeye, 57, was released from HMP Pentonville on 21 April despite having been sentenced to a further 12 months in jail just the day before. The Metropolitan Police were not informed of the error until the afternoon of 24 April, according to The Telegraph, by which point it is believed Adeyeye had already left Britain.
Mr Justice Hayden told the court that during those three days, Adeyeye had walked freely around London, enjoyed “a very nice dinner” and “had quite a lot to drink.” He is then believed to have travelled to Spain after transferring thousands of pounds to a number of individuals.
The judge was unsparing in his assessment of the institutional failure. “If the police had been contacted immediately, this could perhaps, almost certainly perhaps, have been prevented,” he said. “The public is entitled to expect far better than this.”
Adeyeye’s history with the courts stretches back to 2024, when he was jailed for six months after abducting his five-year-old son Laurys and taking him to Nigeria without the knowledge of the boy’s mother. The pair had separated just days before Laurys was born in France in April 2021. Adeyeye was granted contact with his son, including overnight stays, in July 2024 — an arrangement he used to take the child first to England and then to Nigeria. He was arrested on a subsequent visit to the UK and received the initial custodial sentence. The additional 12-month term was imposed after he failed to return Laurys to his mother.
The boy has not been seen by his mother since he was taken to Nigeria, where he is believed to remain. She has been pursuing his return through the courts.
The case has drawn attention to a broader pattern of administrative failures within the prison system. Ministry of Justice data shows that 179 prisoners were released in error between April last year and March 2026. A Ministry of Justice spokesman said the department understood “the distress that releases in error can cause to victims and their families” and confirmed it was working with police to recapture Adeyeye.
