Woman bought baby for £370 to get council home

Peace Sandberg, 40, a former Kensington Housing Trust worker, is facing jail today after being convicted at an earlier hearing of bringing the three-monthold boy into Britain.

The court heard how she flew to Nigeria to collect the child after hearing she faced eviction from her council home.

She had been living in temporary accommodation provided by Ealing council because she had a 12-year-old daughter. However, council officials found the daughter was living abroad with her father, and Sandberg was informed she had to leave the flat.

She flew home to Nigeria and collected the baby before returning to Heathrow and telling immigration officials it was hers. The divorcée then approached the council's homeless unit asking for accommodation. Staff called police because they had seen her a few months earlier when she displayed no signs of pregnancy.

Today, police revealed that they had found a receipt in Sandberg's belongings from a woman in Nigeria for 90,000 Nigerian naira - about £370 - which is believed to have been the amount she paid for the baby. When interviewed, Sandberg said the boy was her cousin's who had died.

She claimed she had offered to care for him and had travelled to Nigeria to collect him and added the boy's details to her passport.

Sandberg was found guilty at Isleworth crown court of bringing a non-EU citizen into the UK. She faces a possible maximum 14-year sentence. Police wanted to charge her with trafficking but a legal technicality means they have to prove the child was "duped".

The case has highlighted the numbers of children who are being brought to Britain by fraudsters who use them to obtain benefits or to work as unpaid labour.

Research by officers working for the Met's Paladin Child operation into child trafficking found that 8,000 unaccompanied children were being brought into Heathrow every year.

The vast majority were travelling legitimately and safely for education, holidays or to join relatives in Britain, and only a "very small'' number gave rise for concern.

However, police are concerned about a significant number of vulnerable children who are suspected of being trafficked.

Detective Inspector Gordon Valentine, of the Met's Child Trafficking Team, commenting on the Sandberg case, said: "This case shows that the welfare of all children in this country is paramount including newly migrant children.

"The reasons this child was brought into the country was not tested in this court hearing so it is not right to comment on the possible outcomes for this particular baby.

"Our research shows that although there are a number of vulnerable children entering the UK, babies represent a very small minority of these."