Twenty years for sex trafficker who used witchcraft to silence victims

Osezua Osolase, 42, preyed on poverty-stricken Nigerian orphans and tricked them into travelling to the UK with the promise of a better life.

But instead the Nigerian treated the victims as “commodities” to be used in a form of “modern-day slavery” by attempting to send them on to mainland Europe to be sexually assaulted by gangs.

West African juju rituals were used to instil terror into Osolase’s three victims, one aged just 14, who felt helpless because they feared retribution and had no-one to turn to.

At Canterbury Crown Court on Friday, he was found guilty of five counts of trafficking for sexual exploitation, and one each of rape and sexual activity with a child.

Sentencing him yesterday, Judge Adele Williams told Osolase, a recycling worker from Gravesend, Kent, that he was “devoid of conscience, devoid of compassion to your victims”.

Osolase, who has HIV, showed no emotion as sentence was passed.

Judge Williams told him he put his victims “in fear” by using juju rituals to force their obedience and secure their silence.

She said he was responsible for a “cruel deception” by promising the girls, one of whom lived under a bridge in Nigeria, a better standard of life in the UK.

It was recommended that Osolase be deported once he has served his sentence.

Detectives revealed that one 16-year-old girl described how a juju ceremony performed on her in Nigeria involved her having samples of blood extracted.

Hair from her head and intimate parts were also cut and she was made to swear an oath of silence and smuggled into Britain before an unsuccessful attempt was made to farm her out to Italy.

During the six-week trial, Osolase, nicknamed “Uncle”, refused to admit trafficking the teenagers, forcing them to relive the crimes in front of a jury. Police believe there were at least 25 suspected victims of the trafficking ring.

In mitigation, Anthony Orchard QC, defending, said Osolase suffers from glaucoma, rendering him 90 per cent blind in one eye.

He also said Osolase disclosed that he had HIV voluntarily to police, and that his German wife had stood by him.