Ekweremadus documented as first people to be tried under the Modern Slavery Act 2015

Offence carries a maximum ten-year prison sentence

Senator Ike Ekweremadu, 60, his wife Beatrice, 56, have been documented as the first people to be tried in Britain for trafficking someone with the intention of harvesting an organ under the Modern Slavery Act 2015.

Both, in addition to their doctor, Dr Obinna Obeta, 50, who facilitated the arrangement to get a donor were convicted at the Old Bailey. They were found guilty of conspiracy to facilitate the travel of a young man with a view to his exploitation, an offence which carries a maximum ten-year prison sentence.

The Ekweremadus were fighting for the life of their daughter, Sonia, who had a kidney ailment and needed a donor.

The £80,000 operation was to have been performed privately by a leading surgeon at the world-renowned Royal Free Hospital, in Hampstead, North London; but the plot failed when the 21-year-old man who claimed he was tricked into England reported himself to the police as a destitute needing help.

Under a deal the Ekweremadus were to pay the unsuspecting ‘donor’ somewhere between £2,400 and £7,000.

Sonia Ekweremadu, whose dialysis sessions reportedly delayed the trial, had faced the same charge, but the jury accepted she was unaware of the conspiracy, and she was acquitted.