Nigerians in ‘slavery’ ordeal win £20,000 damages

Mr Justice Wyn Williams awarded each woman £5,000 after ruling that Metropolitan Police detectives’ “failure to carry out an effective investigation” amounted to a breach of European human rights legislation.

The women, now in their 20s,, had alleged that they were brought from Nigeria to the UK illegally, made to work for no pay in households in and around London for a number of years and subjected to “emotional and physical abuse” by householders.

They complained that the Metropolitan Police had infringed their rights under the European Convention for the Protection of Human Rights and Fundamental Freedoms by failing to investigate over a “significant” period of time.

Police had denied, during a hearing at the High Court in London in March, that any officer had breached the women’s human rights “as a consequence of a failure to investigate” their complaints.

“(The women) allege that their treatment over (the) years was such that they were subject to inhuman and degrading treatment and that they were held in slavery or servitude contrary to (European law),” said Mr Justice Wyn Williams, in a written judgment published today.

“Police were asked to investigate the treatment which had been meted out to them The (women’s) case is that over a significant period of time a number of officers of the Metropolitan Police failed to undertake any such investigation.”

He said there had been a “failure to investigate”, the women had been “directly affected” by that failure and each needed damages to “afford just satisfaction”.

“Each of the (women) is entitled to a declaration to the effect that their human rights were breached,” added the judge. “I have reached the conclusion that the appropriate award of damages for each claimant is £5,000.”

Lawyers for the women had argued that a “continuing failure” to investigate “their forced labour, servitude and abuse” in the London area between 1997 and 2006 amounted to a breach of human rights.

Phillippa Kaufmann, for the women, had told Mr Justice Wyn Williams that the women were trafficked into the UK when they were minors.

“They want an acknowledgement of how all of them have been treated and they want just satisfaction in the form of compensation,” she told the court.

“Above all, they want lessons to be learned, so that others that find themselves in the same predicament can be rescued from circumstances such as those they finally managed to escape from.”