A father vanishes into thin air after walking free from prison by mistake—and he's taken his five-year-old son with him. This isn't a plot from a thriller. This is real life, unfolding right now.
Ifedayo Adeyeye, 57, was behind bars for kidnapping his own child. Then someone in the prison service let him go. Now no one knows where he is, and his little boy remains missing.
The boy's name is Laurys N'Djosse Adeyeye. He hasn't seen his mother since July 27, 2024. That was the day his father took him for his first overnight visit—and never brought him back.
Instead of returning home, Adeyeye flew Laurys to Nigeria. The child was whisked across borders while his mother waited in agony. She has not laid eyes on her son since.
A judge called this abduction "in the most serious class of cases." Mr. Justice Hayden didn't mince words. He said Adeyeye posed a "dangerous threat to his son's physical and emotional welfare."
The father was arrested when he returned to the UK. He got a six-month sentence for failing to return Laurys to his mother. But he never finished it.
On April 24, around 1 p.m., the prison service let him go by accident. The Metropolitan Police got the call and launched urgent inquiries. So far, no trace.
A Nigerian court added another layer of nightmare. Without the mother's knowledge or consent, it granted parental responsibility for Laurys to two people—believed to be Adeyeye's relatives.
Now multiple jurisdictions are tangled in this case. And a little boy's fate hangs in the balance, caught between two countries and a father the court called "entirely dishonest."
The Ministry of Justice admits the system is in crisis. "Releases in error" are rising. They say years of underinvestment are to blame. They're pouring millions into digitizing paper records and strengthening checks.
But that won't help Laurys's mother tonight. She still doesn't know where her son is. And the man who took him is out there somewhere, free to disappear again.
