A British-Nigerian father jailed for abducting his five-year-old son likely escaped to Spain in the three days it took prison staff to inform the Metropolitan Police that they had mistakenly released him — a delay a High Court judge has condemned as showing “an alarming lack of urgency” and a failure of the state.
Ifedayo Adeyeye, 58, was wrongly released from HMP Pentonville in London on 21 April, just one day after being sentenced to a further 12 months for contempt of court — on top of an earlier six-month sentence — over his abduction of five-year-old Laurys N’Djosse Adeyeye from his mother in France. He was also due to be extradited to France upon his eventual lawful release. Prison staff freed him regardless, later attributing the blunder to a “communication failure” with the court — an explanation Mr Justice Hayden dismissed as “an entirely groundless suggestion.”
Rather than surrendering, Adeyeye made the most of his unexpected freedom. The court heard that after walking out of Pentonville, he “strolled about” London, had “a very nice dinner” and drank “quite a lot” at a local pub. He then transferred thousands of pounds from a bank account before travelling to Spain the following day, on 22 April. The Metropolitan Police were not informed he was at large until 24 April — three days after his release — by which point he had almost certainly left the country.
Mr Justice Hayden told a hearing on Monday: “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.” He described Adeyeye as “arrogant and manipulative” and “cold and calculated,” and characterised the original abduction as “an act of cruelty that even this court rarely sees.”
The case against Adeyeye is harrowing in its detail. Last June, the same judge ruled that Adeyeye had abducted Laurys from his mother Claire N’Djosse in France on 27 July 2024 — the very first night Laurys had ever stayed overnight with his father — before taking the child to Nigeria via the United Kingdom. A Nigerian court subsequently granted parental responsibility over Laurys to Adeyeye’s relatives without Ms N’Djosse’s knowledge or consent. She has not seen her son since the abduction and has been fighting through the English courts for his return ever since.
In a legal first, Mr Justice Hayden ruled that the High Court had the power to order Adeyeye to return Laurys even though the child had never lived in the UK. When Adeyeye failed to comply, he was arrested on his return to Britain and jailed for six months in January. The day before he was due to be released, on 20 April, he was sentenced to a further 12 months for additional contempt offences. The following morning, prison staff released him anyway.
Ms N’Djosse’s barrister Chris Bryden said the case represented a double failure by the state. “Not only has the state failed her by the release of the father, but the state has failed her by not informing the Metropolitan Police promptly when quite clearly he could have been picked up,” he told the court. An email from prison staff to solicitors confirmed Adeyeye had been “released in error” because his second jail term was “not flagged up,” and apologised — but failed to explain how staff who had been present at his second sentencing hearing had not flagged the additional sentence when he returned to the prison.
Police confirmed they believe Adeyeye “may have entered Spain” on 22 April and said Spanish authorities had been notified. The Metropolitan Police said they were “using the powers at our disposal to pursue all reasonable lines of enquiry” and acknowledged “how traumatic the present situation must be” for Ms N’Djosse and her son.
The case is the latest in a troubling pattern of wrongful releases from British prisons. Ministry of Justice data published last month showed that 179 inmates were released in error between April 2025 and March 2026. The issue was previously thrust into the public spotlight by the mistaken release of Hadush Kebatu, who had been jailed for sexually assaulting a 14-year-old girl in Essex. The Government has since pledged up to £82 million to reduce accidental releases, acknowledging it had “inherited a prison system in crisis.”
