A CHURCH pastor who delivered vicious beatings to young children after helping to traffic them into the UK and kept them as modern-day slaves has been found guilty of child cruelty.

Lucy Adeniji, 44, who took Olubukols ‘Buki’ Adeniji into her home in Ray Gardens, Barking, after she was brought into the country aged 11 from Nigeria on a false passport, and then subjected her to horrific treatment.

Buki, who arrived in the 1997, was supposed have been sent here for a better life and to continue her education in Britain but was never sent to school.

Instead though Isleworth Crown Court was told that she found herself waiting on Adeniji’s own five children during the years she stayed with the family.

She was regularly beaten, prosecutor Tim Starkey said, and on one occasion pepper was put in her eyes and genitalia as a form of punishment, and she was struck with a meat cleaver.

Adeniji now faces jail after being convicted of a string of offences following a two week trial at Isleworth.

Mr Starkey had told the jury: “In a nutshell, the prosecution say, that Lucy Adeniji is herself illegally in the United Kingdom and that she facilitated the illegal entry into the UK of three children, the three victims in this case.”

Adeniji also committed immigration breaches over Solomon Ordu, who arrived when he was 15 in 2000, and Dorcus Adeola Amoo. Both were kept as house workers and routinely beaten, the court was told.

Mr Starkey said: “All three stayed at her house, effectively as domestic servants and worked unpaid carrying out chores looking after her own five children.”

He added: “During their time they stayed at her house they were physically mistreated.”

On one occasion, the prosecutor said: “An incident arose, it seems because Lucy Adeniji was unhappy with

Buki because she had put some fish in the freezer when Lucy Adeniji had wanted it left ready to be cooked.

Lucy Adeniji, following that incident, lost her temper and used a stick to hit Buki with. She hit her to the chest and back and to the head.”

Adeniji was found guilty of facilitating the entry into the country of Buki, child cruelty and ABH.

She had pleaded guilty to obtaining British passports for herself, two of her children and both Solomon Ordu and Dorcus Adeola Amoo.

Sentencing takes place next month.