A Nigerian woman was yesterday found guilty of illegally bringing a baby into Britain in a case that police believe is one of a growing number of examples of "child trafficking" for benefit fraud.
Peace Sandberg, 40, a housing official in London, flew to Nigeria in November 2006 and returned three weeks later with a baby boy. Police and local authority sources have told the Guardian they believe Sandberg bought the baby - at the time just a few months old - from a hospital and smuggled it into Britain to qualify for priority housing.
Police believe she sent between £150 and £200 to Nigeria in advance payment for the baby. Social services have been unable to trace the biological family of the infant who has been taken into care.
Senior detectives fear that "thousands" of children are being smuggled into Britain for benefit fraud, and privately admit that trafficking legislation is not working. Police complain that the Crown Prosecution Service is "not bold enough" in pursuit of child trafficking cases. Instead of prosecutions under new legislation, cases like yesterday's are being brought under the lesser crime of "facilitation" of illegal entry into the Britain.
The jury in Sandberg's trial was not told she was a suspected child trafficker. But under cross-examination, Sandberg, who denied illegal facilitation, told the court: "They [police] just came and arrested me and abducted the child and told me I had done it for benefit fraud. I asked them: 'What's your definition of trafficking?' "
Sandberg told the jury she had "adopted" the baby, which was born to a cousin in Nigeria who had recently died, to offer the baby a better life. The advance payment was to look after the child.
Isleworth crown court heard how a "distraught" Sandberg arrived at the British consular office in Abuja with the baby, demanding a visa. She is believed to have travelled to Nigeria after losing her right to priority housing when her own child went to live with her ex-husband.
On the same day Sandberg returned to Britain in December 2007, she attended Ealing borough council's homeless unit with the baby, claiming it to be her own.
"After her other [child] left she lost her priority need for housing," a local authority official familiar with the case told the Guardian. "The only way she could retain her [status] was to obtain a child. When she appeared we all thought: 'How can someone acquire a baby just like that?' "
After yesterday's verdict, Judge Sam Katkhuda remanded Sandberg in custody and told her to expect a jail sentence. Sandberg's conviction is the ninth for the Metropolitan Police's child trafficking unit, Operation Paladin, since it was set-up in 2005, but all those have been prosecutions for immigration offences rather than child trafficking crimes, which carry higher sentences.
Sources blame poorly-worded legislation and lack of interest in the CPS. Other than cases of people smuggling for "sexual exploitation", there has not been a conviction under the legislation introduced in 2004. Christine Beddoe, who trains police in trafficking cases, said the failure to prosecute meant the plight of victims went unrecognised." The legislation is inadequate. The criminals are one step ahead."
Detective Inspector Gordon Valentine, who leads Operation Paladin, said: "I would think that child is never going to be back with its natural family - it is never going to know its real identity."
Woman smuggled baby into UK 'to qualify for housing priority' | Society | The Guardian
Woman smuggled baby into UK 'to qualify for housing priority'
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