Childless Couple Jailed Over Baby Smuggled From Africa
A childless couple who desperately tried to start a family for more than a decade have been jailed for smuggling in a baby from Africa.Kacou Miessan, 44, and wife Raymonde, 39, tried to conceive unsuccessfully for 13 years including failed IVF treatment.
The married couple were so set on being parents that Mrs Miessan travelled to her native Sierra Leone and returned a few months later in May last year clutching a baby boy.
Although the couple claimed the baby was found in a bin, it is not known where they actually found him, Canterbury Crown Court heard. Mrs Miessan registered the birth in her home country.
Because she was a French national from Sierra Leone, she was able to get a passport for him before the family began a new life in Ashford, Kent.
James Bilsland, prosecuting, told the court she had lied to the authorities about giving birth when in fact she had never been pregnant.When the couple had a row with a relative over subletting of property, another judge made the discovery that the child had been brought into Britain illegally.
The couple were confronted and told police Mrs Miessan’s own mother found the child in a street bin – still attached to his umbilical cord – and offered it to her. But when the district judge asked Mr Miessan if the child had been brought to the UK illegally, he confessed. The couple were jailed for 12 months last week by Judge Adele Williams.
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