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A Ugandan magistrate who has exercised as a judge at the United Nations, Lydia Mugambe, was sentenced on Friday to six years and four months in prison by the British justice for having forcibly worked a young woman at her home in England.
The 50 -year -old magistrate was found guilty of these modern slavery facts on March 13, after a trial at the Oxford court (south).
J. David Foxton, who pronounced the sentence on Friday, stressed that it was a “very sad affair” involving a magistrate who worked on the protection of human rights.
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“No remorse”
He considered that the accused, a magistrate at the High Court of Justice in Uganda and a judge at the United Nations – a position which she has resigned since – had “shown no remorse” about her actions and had even sought to blame the victim, also of Ugandan nationality.
In February 2023, British police had received a report on a young woman “retained as a slave” by Lydia Mugambe at her home near Oxford.
The debates during the trial revealed that the magistrate, in the United Kingdom to study within the framework of a doctorate at the University of Oxford, had agreed with a high diplomat of the Uganda Embassy in London, John Leonard Mugerwa, to bring the young woman to the United Kingdom.
According to the prosecutor Caroline Haughey, it was a “very dishonest” exchange in which John Leonard Mugerwa had the young woman’s arrival in the Uganda in the Uganda in the Uganda, in exchange for an intervention by the Ugandan magistrate with a judge responsible for treating a case concerning him.
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“An almost permanent fear”
During the trial, the representative of the prosecution accused Lydia Mugambe of having “took advantage of her status” to the detriment of her victim by forcing her to work as a cleaning lady and to take care of her children without being remunerated, and of having cheated on the reasons for his arrival in the United Kingdom.
The defendant had paid the victim’s plane ticket and went to pick her up at the airport. The latter said that she had lived “in an almost permanent fear” due to the position of power of the magistrate.
Lydia Mugambe was found guilty in particular of having facilitated the commission of an offense to British legislation on immigration, for having forced the victim to work and to have tried to intimidate him.
She denied having forced the young woman to perform these domestic tasks and assured having “always” treated her well.
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