A Nigerian woman who was tricked into Britain to work as a sex slave was liberated after eagle-eyed Italian immigration officials spotted the victim’s forged ID and sent her back to the UK.

Florence Obadiaru, 50, and two other traffickers from an international prostitution ring forced their 23-year-old victim to fly into Heathrow with a bogus passport in September 2011, a tribunal heard.

Before leaving Nigeria the victim was raped and subjected to a ‘juju’ death ritual where gang members told her if she did not pay them £40,000 she would die.

She was promised a job in the UK so she could repay the debt, but when she arrived she was kept at Obadiaru’s house, sexually assaulted and told she was destined to work as a sex slave in Italy.

The ‘horrific’ plan was only thwarted when Italian authorities spotted the victim’s forged ID and sent her back to the UK.

Obadiaru was jailed for two years in July 2014 after being convicted of trafficking the woman into the UK for sexual exploitation and arranging for her transfer to Italy.

She has now been struck-off the nursing register after a Nursing and Midwifery Council disciplinary hearing.

Chairman of the panel Robert Barnwell said: “You have been convicted of conspiracy to commit a deplorable and horrific crime in which a young woman was trafficked for the purposes of sexual exploitation, and your conviction goes to the very core of the principles involved in nursing care.

“The public interest element in this case is high, and it is important to mark this case and send a clear message that a conviction of such a crime is unacceptable.”

He added: “You are a mental health nurse who treats vulnerable individuals, however you failed to help a vulnerable woman who desperately required rescuing.”

Obadiaru, of Brockley, south-east London, had worked as a carer for ten years and had just finished her degree in nursing at Bedford University in Luton.

Her fellow gang members Olusoji Oluwafemi and Johnson Olayinka were jailed for six-and-a-half years and four-and-a-half years respectively in July 2014.

Oluwafemi orchestrated the British side of the human trafficking operation and ‘dogsbody’ Olayinka collected the victim from Heathrow and helped to acquire her false passport.

Jailing the trio, Judge Rebecca Poulet QC had said: “This was a sophisticated and carefully planned operation in Nigeria which must have cost a considerable amount of money to the traffickers.

“The expected returns were also considerable.

“She was subjected to a juju ritual with the threat of death.

“She would have been forced into controlled prostitution as she had no possible way in which she could conceivably support herself in Italy.”

The judge added: “While I doubt this was the first trafficking you were involved in I do sentence you on the basis that this involved just the one victim.”

•Adapted from a Daily Mail report. Photo shows one of the traffickers, Florence Obadiaru, who has been struck off Britain’s nursing register as a result of the crime.

Update news