A Nigerian, Adeleke Adelani has been jailed for nine years after forcing his former girlfriend to take five “abortion” pills and locking her in a room at a house in Co Donegal, causing the unlawful termination of her pregnancy.
Adelani told the woman that he would “beat her nine-week-old foetus out of her if she did not take the tablets” on St Valentine’s Day in 2020.
The victim, who asked for Adelani to be named publicly, told the court: “Healing does not erase the loss it only means I learned how to live with it.”
Sentencing the accused to 11 years, with the final two years suspended, Judge John Aylmer described his actions as “extremely premeditated.”
He referred to evidence showing how Adeleke Adelani had “lured” the woman to Letterkenny on the pretext that they were to have the baby together and had researched online how to carry out the termination while knowing she wanted to keep her child.
Referring to the victim impact statement, Aylmer noted the “appalling emotional trauma” suffered by the woman, saying: “You ignored her obvious distress. Her tears were audible in the recording you made.”
Aylmer added: “It’s quite difficult to contemplate a more serious offence contrary to this statutory provision,” noting the unlawful ending of a foetus’s life, assault causing harm, threats, and false imprisonment.
Before mitigation, he said, the offences merited 11 years for the unlawful ending of the life of a foetus and five years for the assault, to run concurrently.
Considering Adelani’s guilty plea, remorse, and good conduct in prison, the sentence was reduced to nine years for the foetus charge and 4½ years for assault.
Adeleke Adelani is currently serving 5½ years for a separate offence, with the new sentence to run consecutively.
He had pleaded guilty to unlawfully ending the life of a foetus under the Health (Regulation of Termination of Pregnancy) Act 2018 and to assault causing harm under the Non-Fatal Offences Against the Person Act 1997.
Garda PJ Folan told the court that gardaí arrived at what appeared to be a domestic incident in Letterkenny just before 2.20pm.
The court heard that Adelani had forced the woman to take the tablets, procured from a Dublin pharmacy, after she became pregnant again in January 2020 and chose to keep the child.
He had invited her to his home under the belief they both wanted to keep the baby, then turned on her. Recordings played in court 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.” “It’s either you eat this or I beat that kid out of you tonight. I’m dead serious … I’m forcing you. I don’t care. Take it.”
In her victim impact statement, she said: “When he wrongfully imprisoned me and caused the termination of my nine-week pregnancy, he took far more than my freedom. He took my child. He took my sense of safety. He took a future that I had already begun to plan and love.
“My baby was real to me. I had hopes, dreams, and a bond with the life that was growing inside me, and all of it was violently stolen from me in a moment of cruelty that I will never forget.”
Speaking after the case, Garda Insp Paul McGee praised the “remarkable strength shown by the victim in seeking accountability for the offences committed against her” and urged anyone subjected to violence, coercion, or harassment to contact gardaí.
