UK authorities have launched a comprehensive manhunt for Ifedayo Adeyeye, a Nigerian-British citizen who was wrongly released from HMP Pentonville prison despite a High Court ruling extending his sentence. Mr. Adeyeye had been jailed for contempt of court after abducting his four-year-old son, Laurys, from France and taking him to Nigeria, violating multiple judicial directives and a UK High Court Return Order. The extended sentence of an additional 12 months was not communicated to prison officials in time for his release on April 21, leading him to be declared “unlawfully at large.”

The ordeal began in July 2024 when Mr. Adeyeye abducted Laurys during what was supposed to be their first overnight stay together, part of a progressive visit arrangement ordered by a French court. Laurys had lived in France with his mother, Claire N’Djosse, a Cameroonian, since his birth in 2021. Mr. Adeyeye took the child from France to England and then onward to Nigeria without his mother's consent, leaving him in the care of relatives before returning to the UK.

Upon his return, Mr. Adeyeye was arrested in London in December 2024 and subsequently sentenced to six months in prison for his initial contempt of court, having done “absolutely nothing” to comply with the Return Order. While in custody, he was found in further breach of the order in April 2025 and sentenced to an additional 12 months. However, the notification of this extended sentence was not flagged before his release, enabling him to walk free.

Justice Hayden, the presiding judge, described the case as “highly unusual” and deeply traumatic for Laurys, who was abandoned in an “alien country now, without his father or mother, and in a culture that will be strange to him.” The child, whose primary language was French, is now in an environment where it is not spoken. Ms. N’Djosse expressed immense distress and anxiety over Mr. Adeyeye’s wrongful release, which she saw as her only hope for reuniting with her son.

The controversy surrounding Laurys’s birth began with a short-lived romantic relationship between Mr. Adeyeye and Ms. N’Djosse in Grenoble, France, in 2020. Laurys was born in April 2021. Initially, Ms. N’Djosse registered her new partner as the biological father, citing sexual and physical violence from Mr. Adeyeye during their relationship. However, Mr. Adeyeye suspected otherwise and applied for a DNA test in June 2021, which confirmed him as the biological father, leading to him being granted parental responsibility.

Two years later, the French court granted Mr. Adeyeye a “progressive contact plan” while Ms. N’Djosse retained full custody. This plan started with supervised visits and gradually increased to overnight stays. Records from the French contact centre, however, documented Mr. Adeyeye’s ongoing difficulties with cooperation and aggressive, dismissive, and rude behaviour towards staff. He was also assessed as uninterested in his son’s routines or habits. Judge Hayden noted in hindsight that this disinterest was a clear sign of his intention to use the first overnight stay for abduction. Ms. N’Djosse had even attempted to obtain a “Prohibited Steps Order” to prevent Laurys from being taken out of France, but her application was denied.

Following the abduction, after Mr. Adeyeye failed to return Laurys and his promised “two-week holiday” elapsed, the French government issued an international arrest warrant for child abduction. Investigations revealed Mr. Adeyeye provided a fake address to the French court and had obtained both British and Nigerian passports for Laurys without the mother’s knowledge. Furthermore, he secured “guardianship orders” from a Nigerian court by falsely claiming both parents consented to the arrangement, a claim Justice Hayden refuted, stating the mother was never notified.

The situation has had a perilous impact on Laurys, who had never spent a night away from his mother before. Judge Hayden articulated the child’s terror, missing his home, mother, and entire world, which was “snatched away from him by his own father.”

In December 2024, Ms. N’Djosse petitioned the High Court of England and Wales for a “Location Order and Orders” for Laurys’s return, initially believing him to be in England. The court faced jurisdictional challenges, as Nigeria is not a signatory to the 1980 Hague Convention on International Child Abduction, and the child was not physically present in England or France. Despite these complexities, the court ruled it could invoke its “inherent jurisdiction” based on Laurys’s British nationality to order measures for his return—a route deemed “exceptional” and rarely applied in such circumstances involving three countries. Mr. Adeyeye’s appeal against this ruling was refused by the Court of Appeal in May 2025.

Subsequently, Laurys was made a ward of court, and a summary Return Order was issued for him to be returned directly to France. Mr. Adeyeye’s continued refusal to comply led to the contempt of court charges and his sentences. In his latest ruling, Justice Hayden ordered the publication of images of the father and child, as well as naming the parties, to aid in locating Mr. Adeyeye and supporting enforcement efforts, citing public interest in transparency and state failures that may have hindered compliance with court orders. Disclosure orders were also approved to assist investigations into his whereabouts.