People smuggler jailed

A people smuggler linked to the Thames "torso boy" case was jailed for four-and-a-half years today after admitting a string of identity fraud offences.

Police believe Kingsley Ojo, 35, was part of a crime ring that trafficked the five-year-old known by detectives as Adam, whose headless and limbless body was found floating in the Thames in 2001.

He will now be quizzed by police about the gruesome case. Ojo is thought to have smuggled hundreds of immigrants-into Britain and provided-them with new identities. Ojo, from Nigeria, admitted assisting illegal immigration. The judge at Southwark Crown Court recommended he be deported on his release.

He had used the ploy made famous in Frederick Forsyth's novel Day Of The Jackal, and taken on the identity of a dead child to get a passport which allowed him to travel throughout-Europe. He had entered Britain in 1999 with false papers under the name Mousa Kamara, claiming asylum from the civil war in Sierra Leone.

Soon afterwards he met Barbara Bourne, 45, who lived in Tottenham and whose son Kieran had died shortly after his birth in 1979.

Unbeknown to his girlfriend he used the dead child's name to get a false driving licence and passport.

For more than a year he travelled between Naples and London to smugg le ille ga l immigrants. The authorities fear they were used as domestic slaves or sold into the sex trade.

Today Ms Bourne told of her horror on hearing Ojo was a people smuggler and had stolen her dead baby's identity.

She said: "When we first met he was nice, gentle and very charming. To me, he was a regular minicab driver who worked hard and came home like any other normal partner."

She only found out what he had done with the birth certificate in Kieran's name when armed police raided her home.

She said: "It was a terrible shock. I had no idea what was going on. My heart was pumping so fast and I had such a lot to take in in such a short time."

Ojo's Stratford home was raided last July by Scotland Yard's Operation Maxim team, which tackles immigration crime.

Detective Chief Inspector Will O'Reilly, investigating the "torso" case, said today he is due to interview Ojo in prison.

He added: "I am hopeful now we can progress the Adam case with Mr Kamara's assistance."