Nigerian mental health nurse involved in sex slavery ring blacklisted by UK Nursing and Midwifery Council

A Nigerian mental health nurse who was convicted and sentenced for smuggling a young Nigerian woman into Britain to work as a sex slave under the threat of a black magic curse has been blacklisted by the British nursing authorities.


Florence Obadiaru, 50, was part of a gang of traffickers that raped a 23-year-old and subjected her to a ‘ju-ju’ death ritual during which she was told if she did not pay £40,000 she would die

Obadiaru and the other gang members then forced the woman to fly into Heathrow Airport in September 2011. The woman was told she would get a job in the UK so she could repay the debt, but instead she was kept at Obadiaru’s house and sexually assaulted.

The mental health nurse planned to transfer the woman to Italy to work as a sex slave, but the plot was thwarted by Italian officials, who noted her forged ID.

At the disciplinary hearing, Robert Barnwell, Chairman of the Nursery and Midwifery Council said:

"You have been convicted of conspiracy to commit a deplorable and horrific crime in which a young woman was trafficked for the purposes of sexual exploitation, and your conviction goes to the very core of the principles involved in nursing care. The public interest element in this case is high, and it is important to mark this case and send a clear message that a conviction of such a crime is unacceptable"

Obadiaru was jailed for two years in July 2014 after being convicted of trafficking the woman into the UK for sexual exploitation and arranging for her transfer to Italy.

Obadiaru, of Brockley, southeast London, had worked as a carer for ten years and had just finished her degree in nursing at Bedford University in Luton.
Her fellow gang members, Olusoji Oluwafemi and Johnson Olayinka, were jailed for six-and-a-half years and four-and-a-half years respectively in July 2014