In N'Djosse v Adeyeye [2026] EWHC 1033 (Fam) last week, Mr Justice Hayden also took the unusual step of ordering that both names and images of the father and four-year-old child could be placed in the public domain, in the hope ‘publicity will assist in securing Adeyeye's return to custody’.
The boy, Laurys, was born in France, where his mother lives, and a French court awarded the father progressively increasing contact. In July 2004, the father, Ifedayo Adeyeye, who has dual British-Nigerian nationality, took Laurys home for an overnight stay for the first time but had given the court a fictitious address. He took his son to England then Nigeria where a Nigerian court has since made a guardianship order in favour of a Nigerian family said to be Adeyeye’s relatives. Adeyeye returned to the UK. The mother, Claire Mireille N'Djosse, sought a court order for Laurys’ return.
Hayden J said: ‘This is a child who had never spent a night away from her before and whom she has not seen since.
‘Her pain is visceral and unbearable to watch. Laurys must have been terrified, missing his home, his mother, his friends, his entire world.... This abduction falls at the very top end of the index of gravity.’
The father was sentenced to six months then a further 12 months for breaching the return order but was mistakenly released from HMP Pentonville.
Hayden J criticised the prison’s letter to the mother for its ‘alarming lack of urgency. It would appear that the international arrest warrant had also "not been flagged up". It requires to be stated unambiguously that Adeyeye's detention in custody is the best, perhaps only, hope for the reunification of this boy with his mother’.
