Manhunt launched after child abductor mistakenly released from London prison

A police manhunt is underway after a man jailed for abducting his son was accidentally released from prison two weeks ago. According to Scotland Yard , Ifedayo Adeyeye, 57, is feared to have fled the country after mistakenly being let go from Pentonville prison, in north London. The Nigerian-British national was serving a six-month sentence for kidnapping his five-year-old son Laurys and taking him to Nigeria. It was ordered by Mr Justice Hayden, a High Court judge, that Adeyeye serve an year long sentence after he failed to return his son to his mother in the UK. However, Adeyeye was released before he could start the sentence after a mistake from the prison, meaning he is “unlawfully at large”. His whereabouts is unknown but it is believed his son remains in Nigeria. Judge Hayden has allowed the publication of images of Adeyeye and Laurys to help the public ensure the dad returns to custody. According to the Telegraph, Claire Mireille N’Djosse, Laurys’s mother, has been left “devastated” by the prison’s error. “When the state fails in the way that it has done here, there is a public interest in [her name] being put in the public domain too and in transparent terms,” said Mr Justice Hayden. The judge added that keeping Adeyeye in custody had been “the best, perhaps only, hope for the reunification of this boy with his mother”. Adeyeye and Ms N’Djosse were together for eight months, but separated before Laurys was born in France in April 2021. In July 2024, the father was allowed for the first time to have Laurys stay with him overnight. He obtained passports and immediately took his son to England and then Nigeria. On a visit to the UK later that year, Adeyeye was arrested. Mr Justice Hayden said: “Laurys remained in Nigeria, where guardianship orders were made by a Nigerian court in favour of a Nigerian family said to be Adeyeye’s relatives. I have no idea if they in fact are. “Adeyeye has been entirely dishonest throughout. The orders were based on false and probably fraudulent information indicating that both parents had consented. The mother had no notice of, and no involvement in, those proceedings. “Nigeria is not a signatory to the 1980 Hague Convention on International Child Abduction, and there is no treaty-based mechanism for securing Laurys’s return to France.” The prison said it did not receive the new 12-month warrant until 6pm on April 20, and it was not flagged up before his release the next day. A Ministry of Justice (MoJ) spokesman said: “We understand the distress that releases in error can cause to victims and their families and are working with the police to recapture this individual. “We inherited a prison system in crisis after years of underinvestment which has resulted in unacceptable rises in releases in error. “That’s why this Government is taking the bold and decisive action needed to fix it – investing up to £82m to digitise outdated paper-based systems, roll out biometrics and strengthen checks across the courts so we can drive down these mistakes and better protect the public.” A Met Police spokesperson added that the force are carrying out "urgent inquiries in an effort to locate him and return him to custody".