A WOMAN who smuggled a baby out of Nigeria to get a free flat was jailed for 26 months today.

Housing support worker Peace Sandberg was branded "manipulative and a stranger to the truth" by a judge after allegedly buying a three-month-old boy in her native country for ?150 to use as a porn in securing a council flat.

The 40-year-old used a forged birth certificate to get a visa for the tot from Nigeria's British High Commission.

Within hours of landing at Heathrow, the fraudster, a Kensington Housing Trust support worker who had been living in a hostel, was at Ealing Councils homeless persons unit, cradling the child in her arms.


Manipulative

She claimed she had returned to Africa in December 2006 to give birth and now needed a flat for herself and her "son".

But Londons Isleworth Crown Court heard Sandberg was immediately recognised by housing officer Lizette Reddy.

And she clearly remembered Sandberg - who holds joint Nigerian and Swedish nationality - not being pregnant when she saw her two months earlier.

Sandberg denied any wrongdoing, claiming she had adopted her cousins orphaned son to give him a better life in Britain.

She also insisted she took the ?150 to Nigeria to help care for him while she was out there.

However, those trying the case took just 40 minutes to unanimously decide she was lying and convict her of one count of child trafficking.

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Outside court Detective Inspector Gordon Valentine, of the joint police and immigration service Paladin team, which investigates child trafficking and exploitation, welcomed the sentence.

He blasted: "This is the first case I am aware of where a child has been smuggled into Britain to get a free home.

He said although the matter had not been tested in court there was clear circumstantial evidence" to suggest she paid money for the child.

"It is quite shocking what she did. She took this child from its home environment and brought it here with the sole intention of exploiting him for benefits.