Nigerian couple who beat their six children jailed after Coronation Street barmaid Michelle Collins gave evidence against them
Two cruel parents convicted of a decade long campaign of abuse against their six children were jailed for seven years each today.

The Nigerian couple, who claimed their kids were possessed by evil spirits, were found guilty after Coronation Street star Michelle Collins gave evidence against them.

They beat their children with brooms, hoovers and wires and even gave their baby a morphine overdose just days after her first birthday.

Five of the children were finally rescued after their eldest daughter threw a heart-wrenching SOS note out of a window.

But it wasn't until their one-year-old baby was given a morphine overdose over a year later that police reopened the case which led to their prosecution.

The plight of the children was so bad that Miss Collins, who met them at a church lunch, took them to the cinema 'because she felt sorry for them'.

She gave evidence as a prosecution witness during the trial of the parents, both 40, who cannot be named to protect their six children.

But the parents claimed they were victims of a conspiracy - and even alleged Miss Collins was involved in a witch hunt against them and wanted to ‘steal’ their children.

One of the youngsters, a baby at the time, had been allowed to stay in the home despite the fact the five other children had to be rescued.

Sentencing them to seven years behind bars each, Judge James Patrick described it as 'shocking mistreatment' that they had tried to cover up with a 'web of deception'.

Judge Patrick said: 'No-one who sat through this trial could help but be moved by the fact that these intelligent, charming, fun, lovable children continue to love you despite what you put them through.'

The married couple denied the allegations claiming they were victims of a racist witch-hunt but were found guilty of cruelty to a person under 16.

They argued the children had been 'brainwashed' into making the allegations by the police, the council and Miss Collins who they said 'wanted to steal' them, Wood Green Crown Court heard.

But Judge Patrick noted: 'You alleged a conspiracy involving a well-known actress, who had done nothing but show your family generosity and kindness, a member of a housing charity, social workers and foster carers.

'Those who had taken the trouble to support you were repeatedly accused of dishonesty, lying, and conspiracy to rob you of your children when the reality was that both of you were lying - in fact they ware simply seeking to give your children stability.'

The abuse came to the attention of police in April 2010 when their nine-year-old wrote an SOS note and threw it out of her bedroom window.

The heart-breaking plea read: 'My mum is the worst mum ever because she can’t cope with five of us, her broken hand and being pregnant. She always leaves me out so I always starve and I am forced to work.

'If I don’t get enough house work done, I am beaten without mercy with the wooden end of a broom. I have scars all over me to prove it. I can’t stay here. I would like a new mum.'

It was found by a neighbour who called the police, and when officers attended the address they found the children living in messy conditions with 'dirty' and 'dishevelled' clothing.

Revealing scars the eldest said her mother had hit her with a cable, a broom, and a hoover and her father had dangled her by her feet down the stairwell of the house, tied her hands behind her back and her legs together 'to get the devilish spirits out', prosecutor Emma Smith said.

Her sister, who was seven at the time, had a stick shaped bruise of her thigh and after a few months in care, she drew a series of pictures showing her dad beating her and her being left home alone and including a speech bubble saying ‘I’m hungry.’

The children were left home alone for hours, sometimes days on end, with the elder kids forced to look after the others.

They had even been forced to lie to a charity and social services that they were living alone with their mother in one room and had no idea who their dad was so they could scam benefits.

Even during the trial the eldest feared she had torn her family apart with her 'devastating cry from the heart in the form of a letter which she threw from the window', the judge noted.

There was an investigation but no further action, and the five children remained in care until the parents once again came to police attention on 28 June last year, when they gave their baby an overdose.

'But for the events of June 28 you would have gotten away with your crimes because of a merciful decision not to prosecute you', Judge Patrick noted.

The couple's sixth child, a baby girl, was also initially taken into care but then returned to her parents. They took her to St Thomas’s Hospital just days after her first birthday last year.

Without treatment she could have died but doctors managed to save the youngster, who it is believed was given morphine orally that morning.

Jurors rejected the parents conspiracy theories.

When they are released the face deportation back to Nigeria - despite pleas from their legal team that they have been 'punished enough' by having their children taken into care.

As they left the court they wailed: 'We are innocent, this is a miscarriage of justice.'

Kobojunkie: Why is the shame on the athletes who chose to run to greener pastures?

Key government officials of Abia state, including commissioners and permanent secretaries, are stashing away billions of naira of state funds in illegal accounts, the governor, Theodore Orji, said Monday in a brazen remark that sought to excuse the administration's drab performance.

Mr. Orji said billions of internally generated revenues were being squandered monthly through official fraud, leaving the state to depend fully on monthly federal allocations.

Much of the federal receipts are used to clear salaries with relatively less for developmental projects. In June for instance, the state spent N2.5 billion on wages out of its federal allocation of N3.4 billion, the governor said.

The governor said the health, education, roads and infrastructure development would suffer if nothing drastic was done to shore up the state's revenue base.

"I am not here to pay salaries alone,'' he said.

Mr. Orji met with the commissioners, permanent secretaries and heads of extra-ministerial offices in the state capital, Umuahia, on Monday, and warned that all illegal accounts be closed immediately, threatening to fire and prosecute defaulters.

[b]"As you leave this place, you should close all the revenue accounts in your ministries where you keep your revenue and disburse without government's knowledge," he directed.

"All the revenues generated by your ministries must be paid into the consolidated revenue account that is what the law says."

The governor said the government functionaries had fronted assorted revenue collection agents and consultancies through which the monies are siphoned.

"We have instances where officers collect money and pocket it. "I am not going to take it lightly this time around; it will be tit-for-tat. If any commissioner keeps any account in the ministry, I will arrest him and lock him up along with his permanent secretary," he said.

"I will sack him and then hand him over to the Economic and Financial Crimes Commission."

[/b]The south east state, which receives oil derivation, has been under criticisms as amongst some of the least performing states with its renowned commercial city of Aba in filth and just a part of the capital, Umuahia, receiving a face-lift.

The governor said a particular commissioner floated a revenue collecting company, through which he was pocketing money that ought to go into government's coffers.

He recalled that Aba generated the revenue that ran the defunct Imo State, stressing that the city still had the potential to sustain Abia.

"The openings for revenue generation are still there in Aba but we are not harnessing them because of sabotage and personal aggrandizement," he said.

The governor said only one revenue consultant was approved by the state government for revenue collection in the state, saying that any other consultant or revenue collector was illegal.

"If I get any person parading himself as a revenue agent or consultant, I will set example with that person,'' he said.

Mr. Orji specifically took a swipe at the commissioners for Lands, Commerce and Industry, Environment and Agriculture for failing in their duties.

"As my appointees, you have to do my bidding and if there is any arrangement you have in the ministry on how you generate revenue, go now and cancel it," he said.

"You have to do what I want you to do, otherwise, you should find your way out or I will show you the way out,'' he said.

Agents of the Abia State Environmental Sanitation Agency, he said, harassed traders and residents of Umuahia and Aba and raked in huge revenues running into hundreds of millions of naira, with only a pittance being remitted to government's coffers.

The governor also spoke of the "rot" in the state's Local Government system, alleging that many people were collecting salaries without doing any job.

He said that during a recent assessment of the Local Government workforce, using the bio-metric data machine, it was discovered that N80 million was paid to ghost workers monthly.

The governor said there were more teachers in the state than required and warned that he might begin a systematic downsizing of the workforce to rid the service of redundant workers.

eunisam: What does IBB and OBJ have in common? Anyway they are the same people who beats the chirld and asks him not to cry! Occultists.