A pregnant Nigerian woman’s plan to use the NHS as an ‘International Health Service’ to deliver her baby and then have the child declared a British citizen was foiled when she was exposed as a fraud, a court heard.
Oluwaseun Adenubi, 30, used the passport of her friend, 32-year-old Rita Ogunkunle, to obtain free care. After the delivery the friend and her boyfriend Michael Adebambo, 46, registered the baby as theirs.
However, staff at Farnborough's Princess Royal University Hospital realized the medical records of the genuine Ogunkunle, who had received acne treatment there, conflicted with the pregnant patient claiming to be her.
"The probation service think this is a plot to use the International Health Service and then take further advantage - the residency that comes with that and everything else", said Croydon crown court judge John Tanzer.
Adenubi, who was granted a family visit visa which allows her to stay in the UK for up to six months, pleaded guilty to fraud against the hospital between April and July last year.
Ogunkunle and Adebambo, both of Orpington, pleaded guilty to wilfully giving false information about the registration of a birth by claiming to be the parents of Moses Adenubi, at Bromley Civic Centre.
The couple have now fallen out with Adenubi, who claims she found Ogunkunle’s passport on a bench. Ogunkunle said it was snatched from her home and used behind her back.
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| Couple: Rita Ogunkunle and Michael Adebambo, who registered the child as theirs |
"The probation service are there to report what they have been told and they say they don’t believe a word of it and neither do I", added the judge. Prosecutor Alexandra Bushell told the court: "Maybe there was a motivation to secure the nationality of the child as a British citizen and free NHS treatment. After the baby was born in June staff realised something was not right because Ogunkunle has severe scarring, which the baby's mother did not have, and there were two different blood types for the same patient."
Ogunkunle was arrested in August and claimed Adenubi took her passport after moving into her spare room.
"She admitted falsely registering the birth of the baby and said she had been introduced to Adenubi by a friend of her mother and took pity on her because she was pregnant and had no friends", added the prosecutor. "She told police she was angry at Adenubi using her identity and tried to beat her to it by registering the child."
Miss Bushell went on:
"Adebambo said his girlfriend asked him to go to the register office to register a birth and said she told him she did not want another woman to use her identity.
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| Mother: Oluwaseun Adenubi claimed to have found the passport on a bench |
"He said he did it out of love for his girlfriend and was very remorseful."
Adenubi claimed she was fleeing a violent partner in Nigeria and claimed to have no family here and no contact with her family in Nigeria.
"She said she arrived with nowhere to go and met a Nigerian man at the airport and others via a church, but had no details of those she stayed with.
"She claimed to have found Ogunkunle’s passport on a bench and only used it to get free medical services."
All three were bailed until a date to be fixed.
Source: Evening Standard
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