A Nigerian man, Adeleke Adelani, received a nine-year prison sentence after forcing his former girlfriend to swallow five abortion pills and locking her in a room in Co Donegal, Ireland, resulting in the unlawful termination of her pregnancy.
On Valentine’s Day 2020, Adelani threatened to “beat her nine-week-old foetus out of her” if she refused the tablets. The victim, who waived anonymity for Adelani, told the court: “Healing does not erase the loss; it only means I learned how to live with it.”
Judge John Aylmer labeled the acts “extremely premeditated,” noting Adelani had lured the woman to Letterkenny under the pretense of raising the baby together. He had researched abortion methods online despite knowing she wanted to keep the child. The judge highlighted her “appalling emotional trauma,” pointing to a recording where her tears were audible as Adelani ignored her distress.
Aylmer called it “quite difficult to contemplate a more serious offence” under the law, involving unlawful termination of a foetus’s life, assault causing harm, threats, and false imprisonment. Before mitigation, he set 11 years for the foetus charge and five years for assault, to run concurrently. Adelani’s guilty plea, remorse, and good prison behavior reduced it to nine years and 4½ years, respectively.
Adelani, already serving 5½ years for a separate offense, will serve the new sentence consecutively. He pleaded guilty under Ireland’s Health (Regulation of Termination of Pregnancy) Act 2018 and Non-Fatal Offences Against the Person Act 1997.
The court heard he obtained the pills from a Dublin pharmacy after she became pregnant again in January 2020. Recordings captured him saying: “I’m showing you what to do … take this … I’m dead serious … I’m forcing you. I don’t care, take it.” And: “It’s either you eat this or I beat that kid out of you tonight.”
Garda Insp Paul McGee praised the victim’s “remarkable strength” in pursuing justice and urged victims of violence, coercion, or harassment to contact police.
