The couple was alleged to have made the woman,
Iyambo Olatunji, to work 18-hour shifts and took to beating her after she asked
for higher wages.
Olatunji 37, a babysitter, was paid just 20
pounds a week for looking after the couple’s two young children at home in
Erith, south east London.
Olatunji told Southwark Crown Court that she
was also made to work long days, cleaning house before staying late and cooking
the couple’s dinner.
According to her, when she asked for higher
wages, she was slapped by Mr and Mrs Adewakun.
Olatunji, who did not have her own bank
account, was originally promised a 450 pounds monthly salary over a 15-month
period, jurors heard.
The Adewakuns’ first met her back in her home
town of Ondo State where she was working as a secretary for the local
government in return for N40, 000.
After spending time working for Mr Adewakun’s
pastor father as a teen ‘house-helper’ in the 1990s, she was invited to make
the trip to London to work as a babysitter for the pair.
Olatunji told the court: “Aunty Ayo said she
would look after me. She said I would be fine. She said she would pay me a
salary. The salary would have been higher than the one I was earning in the
local government.”
The Kent-based doctor promised her new child-minder
450 pounds per month in a contract signed by the couple. The contract specified
a range of terms and conditions of Olatunji’s employment which began when she
arrived in February 2004.
The terms included caring for the couple’s two
young children ‘at times agreed in advance’ during working hours ‘stipulated as
Monday to Saturday’ six days per week between 7am and 5pm.
Olatunji denied she was made aware of any
duties expected of her outside of her babysitting role and added that she had
never even had a bank account set up for her to receive her wages into.
She said: “I told Aunty Ayo I do not have one,
but she just said, I have plans for you.”
She said Ayodeji’s brother accompanied her to
the British Embassy in Nigeria to get her passport and held onto it until they
landed in the UK.
When she first arrived at the three-bedroom
house she met the couple’s Hungarian au pair who showed her the children’s
nursery, school and local park before leaving a week later with ‘a bad
attitude.’
Jurors heard Dr Adewakun spotted Olatunji
chatting to the au pair and raged, “Are you listening to her? She is not happy
you are here because she is leaving. She is not a good au pair.”
The court heard Olatunji, who came to the UK
with just N5.00 in her pocket, was not even treated to a t-shirt she liked
during a family holiday to Euro Disney.
On their return, she claimed she was made to
get up at 6am to get the children fed and off to school before tidying the home
during the day and preparing meals for the evening. She told Juror that she
used to sleep at midnight.
She recalled that the doctor and her husband
sometimes did not return home from work until well after 10pm.
Olatunji said: “Sometimes she would speak
nicely to me – 25 per cent nice to me, 75 per cent anger. She did not pay me. Both
of them did not pay me, they just gave me 20 pounds on Friday.”
She was even told a landline call to her
parents back home was ‘too expensive’ and spent some of her wages on Africa Tel
calling cards. Olatunji said she was slapped three times by the doctor when she
asked for more money.
The first occasion, coinciding with her
birthday, was documented in a diary she kept, which also detailed the lax
payment schedule.
Jurors heard the babysitter wrote: “Aunty
fight with me today. She slapped my face twice. The day I will never forget in
my life – the first time in history that somebody has slapped my face.”
Olatunji claimed she was assaulted again twice
before she reported her situation to Mrs Adewakun’s mother. Dr Adewakun and her
husband Abimbola, both deny obtaining services by deception and trafficking a
person into the UK for exploitation. Mrs Adewakun further denies assaulting
Olatunji and two further counts of fraud and trafficking a person into the UK
for exploitation in relation to a second victim. The trial continues.
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