Girl, 5, trafficked to UK to work as servant spent TEN YEARS believing family who beat her was her own
Last updated at 5:29 PM on 16th June 2011
- Called tormentors 'Mum' and 'Dad' thinking they were her parents
- Kept wondering why she was not given toys or sent to school like family's children
- Police describe her as a 'frightened rabbit'
- Was smacked and hit with a wooden spoon
A life of servitude: The girl couldn't remember what her parents looked like
A five-year-old child trafficked to Britain for a life of domestic slavery believed the woman who tormented her was her own mother.
The girl was so young when she was brought from Nigeria to the UK that she was convinced the couple who set her to work in their house were her parents.
She remembered nothing of her life back in Africa and could not even recall what her real parents looked like, said a High Court judge.
The extraordinary ordeal suffered by the girl - who is now aged 18 - emerged during a hearing to decide whether she should have been entitled to benefits and support when she finally escaped her life of slavery.
She was initially denied this when she was taken into the care of Hillingdon Council when she was 15.
Mr Justice Keith said the youngster was put to work as a domestic dogsbody in a family home in Wembley, North-West London, and for years called her tormentors 'Mum' and 'Dad'.
She wondered why she did not go to school and was given no toys or presents of her own, like the other children in the family, the court was told.
The girl - named only as 'Y' during court proceedings - was smacked or beaten with a wooden spoon, or slipper, by her 'mother' if the housework was not up to scratch.
And she was not allowed to eat with members of the family while the father of the house simply ignored her.
The judge said: 'To him she was just a servant.'
Ordeal: The girl's extraordinary story was revealed during a hearing at the High Court
She was never allowed out of the house unaccompanied and, if anyone asked, the woman would say that the girl was her daughter.
Y was later sent to work for another family in Hillingdon where, after five more years of servitude, she became so miserable that she packed a bag and ran away in the middle of the night.
After several days living rough, a woman found her sleeping in a telephone box in Elephant and Castle and contacted the police.
A life of isolation had left her with almost no understanding of the world and Y was described by officers as 'like a frightened rabbit'.
'To him (the father of the family), she was just a servant': High Court judge Mr Justice Keith presided over the case
Y was handed over to the London Borough of Hillingdon, who placed her in short-term foster care.
However, it disputed her claim that she was a child, aged just 15, and therefore entitled to accommodation and a wide range of benefits under the Children Act.
Although she had no memory of her early childhood, Y said she had found a diary under a pile of clothes at the house in Wembley, giving her date of birth as February 17, 1993.
The judge said it was 'entirely understandable' that Hillingdon wanted to know her true age, and two specialist dentists were commissioned to assess her date of birth from examining her teeth.
Hillingdon argued her 'confidence and maturity' indicated she was over 18 when she arrived on the council's doorstep, but the judge said that may have been because she was then 'experiencing for the first time the freedom to do as she liked, which the majority of us take for granted'.
He said Y's account of the diary entry was 'by far the most important evidence in the case' and her testimony on the issue 'hangs together and has the ring of plausibility about it'.
Accepting that Y's date of birth was February 17 1993, the judge concluded: 'I am as sure as I can be ...that Y saw the entry in the diary which she claims to have seen'.
Although Y has now passed her 18th birthday, the ruling means she should have been treated as a child by Hillingdon until then and may, until she is 21, be entitled to additional benefits and support as a 'former relevant child' under the terms of the Children Act.
Carolyn Hamilton, Director of the Children's Legal Centre, said: 'How could this happen? Like the Victoria Climbié case, 'Y' slipped through the net. 'Y' lived in England for 10 years without anybody noticing that she was a young child who didn't go to school nor was she registered with a doctor.
'She was treated as a servant and not as a child of the family. This was despite the fact that she took and picked up the family's young child from a nursery every day when she was no more than 12 and attended church at times with the family.'
Commenting on the judgment handed down, Danusia Brzezina, the Children's Legal Centre solicitor who represented 'Y' stated that 'this is a wonderful outcome for 'Y'. She is thrilled. Regrettably this is one of all too many cases of children being wrongly age disputed in the UK, because of this 'Y's life was put on hold. She would now like to get the appropriate support from the local authority, so that she can move on from her past'.
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