Nigerian woman, identified simply as Susan, has been arrested in the United Kingdom for allegedly faking a pregnancy and attempting to smuggle a baby girl from Nigeria into the country under false claims of being the child’s biological mother.
BBC gathered that the woman, a care worker who had been living in West Yorkshire with her husband and children since June 2023, was arrested at Gatwick Airport last summer shortly after she returned from Nigeria with the baby.
Before leaving for Nigeria, Susan had told her UK doctor she was pregnant, a claim that was later exposed as a lie.
Medical scans and blood tests not only proved she was not pregnant but also revealed she had a tumour suspected to be cancerous.
Despite the diagnosis, Susan refused medical treatment, insisting bizarrely that her previous pregnancies had not shown on scans.
Susan had bizarrely insisted that her previous pregnancies never showed up on medical scans, boasting to her employer that “my babies are always hidden.”
She further claimed she had carried her other children for as long as 30 months.
In early June 2024, Susan travelled to Nigeria, claiming she wanted to deliver her baby there. Upon her return to the UK, she contacted her local hospital to report that she had successfully given birth. But her claims immediately raised suspicions among British doctors, who alerted children’s services.
When Susan arrived back at Gatwick Airport with the baby girl, referred to in court documents as Eleanor, she was intercepted and arrested by Sussex Police on suspicion of child trafficking.
Though she was later granted bail, the police confirmed there is currently no active investigation into the matter.
Following her arrest, DNA tests were carried out on Susan, her husband, and the baby. Eleanor was swiftly placed in foster care. But Susan remained defiant.
“When the results show that I am Eleanor’s mother, I want her to be returned immediately,” she declared.
However, the DNA results were clear: the baby bore no genetic link to either Susan or her husband. Even after demanding a second test, the outcome remained the same.
In a dramatic twist, Susan altered her story. She claimed she had undergone IVF treatment in Nigeria before relocating to the UK in 2023, using donor egg and sperm, which, according to her, explained why the DNA tests had failed to match.
To support her claims, Susan produced a letter purportedly from a Nigerian hospital, allegedly signed by the facility’s medical director, confirming she had given birth there. She also presented documents from another clinic outlining the supposed IVF procedure.
In addition, she submitted photographs and videos, which she claimed showed her inside a Nigerian hospital labour ward. However, her face was never visible in any of the images. One disturbing photograph depicted a naked woman with a placenta between her legs and an umbilical cord still attached.
The Family Court in Leeds sent Henrietta Coker to investigate.
Ms Coker, who provides expert reports to family courts in cases like this, has nearly 30 years’ experience as a social worker. She trained in Britain and worked in front-line child protection in London before moving to Africa.
Ms Coker visited the medical centre where Susan claimed she’d had IVF. There was no record of Susan having had treatment there – staff told her the letter was forged.
She then visited the place Susan said she’d given birth. It was a shabby, three-bedroom flat, with “stained” walls and “dirty” carpets.
There, Ms Coker was met by “three young teenage girls sitting in the reception room with nurses’ uniforms on”.
She asked to speak to the matron and was “ushered into the kitchen where a teenage girl was eating rice”.
Ms Coker then tracked down the doctor who’d written a letter saying Susan had given birth there. He said, “Yes, someone had given birth”.
Ms Coker showed him a photograph of Susan, but it wasn’t her, the doctor said.
“Impersonating people is common in this part of the world,” he told Ms Coker, suggesting that Susan might have “bought the baby”. (SaharaReporters)
