Ghanaian jailed for smuggling 'slave' into the UK

An accountant who helped his wife smuggle a 14-year-old Ghanaian girl into Britain to act as their slave has been jailed for 18 months.

Samuel Quainoo, 59, and his wife, teacher Mrs Quainoo, 37, forced the girl to cook and clean in the house as well as being the primary carer for their two young sons, she claimed.


At Isleworth Crown Court today, Judge Jonathan Lowen handed Ernestina a suspended sentence.


The couple admitted one count of child trafficking, but denied they have treated her like a slave.


The girl, who cannot be named for legal reasons, said she was given "hand-me-downs" from Mrs Quainoo to wear.


She told the court that from 8am until 5pm or 6pm, she was expected to feed, clothe and wash their baby, as well as sleep in the same room as him at night.


She claimed she was promised an education and job when she moved here with Mrs Quainoo four years ago, but instead was rarely allowed out alone, and had to work for free as the family's live-in babysitter.


The teenager claimed to have had considered suicide because she was so unhappy in Britain, the court heard.


After two years she walked into the local social services department at Hillingdon saying she needed medical care because she was ill with Hepatitis B.

The girl was smuggled by the accountant and his wife from Ghana with false documents. But although the couple admit trafficking the child into Britain in 2004, they deny ill-treatment and said they treated her "like a daughter".


The teenager said she had worked for the accountant's wife as a live-in carer for her first baby in Ghana, although Mr Quainoo lived in the UK.


She claimed she was made to come to Britain by her mother, who had been promised by Mrs Quainoo that they would send her to school and, when the time came, find her a job.


But although she said she was happy "in the beginning" and was paid for her work when working for Mrs Quainoo in Ghana, she said everything changed when they started preparations to move to Britain.


The teenager, from a village close to Accra, told police the Quainoos had changed her name, said she was their daughter and told the authorities she was younger than her real age to help apply for a two year visa to the UK in April 2004.


She arrived in Britain in July that year and moved into the Quainoo's family two bedroom home in West Drayton, Middlesex.


She said: "When we were coming to England she told me that she wanted me to look after her son for him so she have to change my name."


Her wages of £7.50 a month were stopped, and when they arrived she claims the education she was promised was not mentioned again.

She said: "They don't pay me any money, They gave me £10 once."


In an interview with police in May 2006, which was played to Isleworth Crown Court, the girl said: "I used to go to work so I would have to look after the baby every day, morning to evening. Me and the baby, we share a bedroom together.


"I stay alone. I look after the baby. He's not going to school so I had to look after him. I feed him and do everything. They don't pay me any money. They once gave me £10 to go to the shop, but only once.


"I came here and I don't have any friends. Sometimes I would go out and then I don't have anybody to talk to. I just walk, walk, walk and then get back home.


"Sometimes I go and stand by the river side or somewhere like that."


The girl, who is now 18, also claimed she was not allowed to leave the house without permission and that her only friend was a woman she befriended in the library, who she went to visit when she was contemplating suicide.


She told police: "I went to the library because I was looking for help, that if I told my mum that I have suffered so much I will kill myself you're not going to see me again."


The Quaimoos claim they treated the girl "like a daughter'"and encouraged her to attend college by giving her a prospectus. They say she was free to come a go as she pleased, and was given her own door-key.

In his statement two years ago the accountant explained how he left his wife in their native Ghana to complete a university teaching course while he came to Britain.


He added that although she was from a poor village background, they hoped to "assist her development and education", improve her English and get her into college. And when she contracted hepatitis B he made sure she was treated properly.


But he said she had become increasingly badly behaved and threatened him with an "evil" voodoo spell.


He told police the girl had demanded to see a voodoo priest within months of arriving to make the "concoction", or "one of us will go mad".


The father-of-two said in a statement: "This was an evil spell made in Ghana, this worried us a lot because voodoo still exists in Ghana so we proposed we would arrange a priest in Ghana. This voodoo concoction still exists."


A special Newton hearing started yesterday to decide which of the two sides is telling the truth. Judge Jonathan Lowen said effectively the youngster was claiming "all she ever was in their house was a servant or a slave".


He said it was "clear that girl's entry was carefully planned" with bogus birth and baptism certificates used to fool High Commission staff in Accra into thinking she was their daughter and granting her a visa.


Dismissing the teacher's evidence of unstinting love and care for the youngster as 'inconsistent' with the facts, he accepted the teenager's account of being a 'servant or slave' during her two year ordeal 'and nothing more than that'.

She was 'especially vulnerable because of her dependence upon the Quainoos for her identity' and was 'was simply treated as a worker without pay.


'She was effectively excluded from all the aspects of life as a teenager, which had she truly been treated as a daughter she would surely have enjoyed.


'She was without any financial means, without any independence and kept without regard of her need for friends. She was kept as an employee without any rights whatsoever. She was never treated as a child who had become a daughter. You exploited the illegality of the fabric of her life here. You abused the trust she place in you.


'This was a case of utter exploitation where she was entirely subservient to your will.