Court requests urgent UK HCPC fitness-to-practice investigation into Immaculata Nkiruka Ikenwankwor over established sexual assault and death threats against Abuja based Legal Practitioner.
ABUJA, NIGERIA
The High Court of the Federal Capital Territory (FCT), Abuja Nigeria has directed relevant security agencies to commence a criminal investigation into a UK-based Nigerian radiographer, Immaculata Nkiruka Ikenwankwor, following findings of cyber harassment, threats to life, sexual assault and blackmail against her ex, a Legal Practitioner.
In a judgment delivered on Wednesday, 3rd June, 2026, the presiding judge, Honourable Justice O.A. Musa, ordered the court registry to transmit Certified True Copies of the Judgment and case files to investigative and prosecuting authorities within seven days.
The court ordered the respondent to pay the applicant One Hundred and Fifty Million Naira in aggravated damages, alongside a 10% post-judgment interest rate per annum.
In evaluating the scale of the aggravated damages to compensate the Applicant, the Court explicitly detailed a seven-point assessment criteria:
The sustained and deliberate nature of the misconduct;
The severe invasion of the applicant’s privacy;
The profound emotional distress caused over a significant period;
The calculated attempt to use fear and pressure as leverage;
The applicant’s established professional standing;
The special vulnerability of a practicing lawyer to reputational injury;
The damaging impact of the harassment on the applicant’s concentration, confidence, and career progression.
Justice Musa noted that the fundamental rights breach was not an isolated incident, stating:
“The Applicant was subjected to a sustained course of conduct involving threats to personal safety, covert recording of private communications, interference with dignity and autonomy, and coercive pressure through the threatened deployment of legal processes. The cumulative effect of these acts was to create an atmosphere of fear, insecurity, humiliation and emotional distress extending over a significant period.”
Justice Musa ruled that a standard restraining order was entirely insufficient to address the systemic risks exposed by the case. Declaring that “the stream of justice must flow into the regulatory spheres that license the Respondent,” the court ordered the formal transmission of the certified true copy of the judgment to:
The Health and Care Professions Council (HCPC), United Kingdom.
The Radiographers Registration Board of Nigeria (RRBN)
Wrightington, Wigan and Leigh Teaching Hospitals NHS Foundation Trust, United Kingdom.
In a scathing assessment of her professional standing, the court’s referral language stated:
“A practitioner in the medical imaging and radiation sciences is, by the very nature of their training, entrusted with human life, vulnerability, and the highest standards of public safety. The ethical codes governing a registered radiographer demand the absolute preservation of high moral character, emotional stability, and an unwavering commitment to doing no harm. The evidence accepted by this Court paints a picture that is absolutely opposed to these professional tenets.”
The judgment further warned that the safety of patients could not be guaranteed under the care of someone displaying such volatility, concluding with a direct challenge to the regulators:
“For a medical professional to meticulously formulate, repeat, and later attempt to justify an explicit roadmap to terminate a fellow human being’s life—by stabbing them to death in their sleep—constitutes an egregious departure from the minimum behavioural standards expected of a registered clinician. It indicates a volatile temperament and a severe ethical failure that directly calls into question the Respondent’s fitness to practice… The professional regulatory bodies are urged to determine whether an individual who legally binds her self-restraint from violence solely to ‘the fear of going to jail’ can safely remain on a register of trusted medical practitioners.”
Factual Findings of the Court
- Threats to Life and Volatile Behaviour
The court’s findings were established after an examination of extensive WhatsApp messages exchanged between the parties in controversy. After reproducing EXHIBIT D in the judgment, the Court interpreted that piece of evidence in its judgment (particularly at pages 23, 24, 25, 26, 27 & 28), thusly:
The Court is called upon to interpret these preserved words not as mere digital text, but as a real-time record of human conduct, psychological terror, and a severe breach of constitutional safety. In performing this task, the Court places a literal, purposive interpretation on the speech and actions of both parties to determine if the Applicant’s right to life under Section 33 of the 1999 Constitution (as amended) has been fundamentally compromised. The genesis of the grievance lies in a verbal confrontation that is staggering in its graphic severity.
The Respondent is documented as having repeatedly demanded of the Applicant: “Have you thought of the fact you could be sleeping and get stabbed to death?” This is not a vague, ambiguous expression of anger, nor can it be dismissed as the standard, non-lethal exaggeration often spat out in moments of domestic friction. It is a highly specific, chillingly structured roadmap of violence. The Respondent meticulously couples a lethal mechanism—stabbing—with a condition of absolute human vulnerability: sleep. By targeting the Applicant at a time when his consciousness is suspended and his defenses are entirely neutralized, the Respondent manifested an intent to execute maximum harm with zero opportunity for the victim’s self-preservation. What elevates this statement from a reckless outburst to a credible, terrifying threat to life is the immediate, contemporaneous dialogue that followed. When the Applicant, attempted to test reality and offer a path for de-escalation by asking, “Threatening that you could take my life?”, the Respondent did not recant. The Respondent did not claim to have spoken in error. Instead, the Respondent doubled down, shouting, “I don’t care!” over and over. This repetition is of immense forensic value to this Court. It proves a conscious, deliberate ratification of the threat in real-time. It demonstrates a total indifference to the Applicant’s sudden fear and an outright abandonment of the sanctity of human life.
Furthermore, the Respondent’s own words expose the fragile barrier preventing this threat from becoming a physical reality. The Respondent stated: “But I don’t want to go to jail, because I am the only person my family has.” This Court must ask: what is keeping the Applicant alive? By the Respondent’s own clear admission, it is not moral restraint, it is not affection, and it is not respect for the law or human life. The sole retaining wall against a fatal assault is the Respondent’s calculated fear of state punishment and personal legal inconvenience. The Applicant’s life was effectively placed at the mercy of the Respondent’s ongoing, fluid risk assessment regarding jail time. This constitutes a severe, continuous, and existential threat to the Applicant’s right to life. No citizen of this country should have their survival dependent on an aggressor’s calculated fear of incarceration… The Respondent shifts seamlessly from blood-chilling threats to indifferent defiance, then to passive-aggressive gaslighting, and finally—when legally cornered by the Applicant’s unwavering stance—to a brief, compliant apology: “I’m sorry I said that in anger, there’s no justification and it will never happen again.”
While the Respondent may argue that this final apology cures the infraction, this Court views it with deep suspicion and serious concern. An apology given only when an aggressive strategy fails is a tactical compliance tool, not a guarantee of safety. The Respondent’s written admission that there is “no justification” for her words is a formal admission against interest under our laws of evidence under section 20 thereof. Interpreting section 20 of the Evidence Act, the Supreme Court stressed in Ajide v. Kelani (1985) 3 NWLR (Pt.12) 248, 260 that “Where there are admissions by a party against his interest such admissions will be admissible against the person.”
Further down the judgment, the Court concluded in this lucid language:
The conduct of the Respondent in the circumstances apparent on the face of EXHIBIT D is rather egregious and boggles the mind. Reference to the Applicant’s future implies leverage. The statement:
“You have a very beautiful future and I am sure you don’t want to ruin it.”
when read beside threats of stabbing and jail, carries undertones of menace and control. It implies: (a) awareness of the Applicant’s ambitions; (b) capacity or desire to damage them; and (c) use of fear as leverage. This Court specifically finds that: (a) The Respondent’s words (as contained in EXHIBIT D) constituted an express communication of lethal violence, namely death by stabbing; (b) The threat was made more serious by describing the Applicant as asleep, i.e., defenceless and vulnerable; (c) The repeated nature of the statement converted it from spontaneous insult into sustained intimidation; (d) The Respondent’s reply, “I don’t care,” after being told she was threatening life, objectively affirmed the menace rather than withdrew it; (e) The Applicant’s stated fear (“That comment really scared me”) was entirely reasonable; (f) The later apology is accepted as an admission of misconduct, but does not extinguish the legal character of the earlier threat. - Finding of sexual assault:
After examining the evidence placed before it, the Court made findings of sexual assault against the Radiographer in these words:
I firmly find and hold that the Applicant’s constitutionally guaranteed fundamental rights under section 34 and 37 of the amended 1999 Constitution (dignity of his human person, privacy and bodily autonomy) were violated by the Respondent in that on several occasions she forced herself on the Applicant for sexual intercourse without his consent despite his objections on grounds of his catholic faith while staying with the Applicant in the Federal Capital Territory, Abuja.
I have excluded the part that took place in Bolton, England, United Kingdom because it is outside the territorial jurisdiction of this Court whose jurisdiction remains territorial. - Cyber Intimidation and Blackmail
The court declared that the respondent actively utilized digital platforms as coercive instruments of intimidation and menacing communication for private advantage. The Court made far reaching findings of blackmail and cyber harassment based on the interpretation of WhatsApp messages placed before it as EXHIBITS as follows:
Upon reviewing the evidence, I find that the Respondent’s persistent calling and messaging, maintained despite the Applicant’s total lack of engagement, constitutes stalking and psychological intimidation. Her behaviour demonstrates a clear intent to harass the Applicant into a state of submission. In the absence of any prior established agreement between the parties in hostility, I am entitled to interpret EXHIBIT BLACKMAIL1, EXHIBIT F, and BLACKMAIL2 as acts of unprovoked blackmail. This extortionate conduct is established by three distinct elements: first, the demand, consisting of a letter containing a confession and undertaking; second, the menace, comprised of threats to report the Applicant to the police and expose damaging secrets; and third, the intent. I view these messages as a malicious attempt to subvert the course of justice by forcing the Applicant to sign a false document.
Consequently, I find that the Respondent has failed to prove the existence of any undertaking. Instead, the Applicant’s testimony, combined with the aggressive and timed nature of the messages originating from the Respondent, leads me to conclude that the Respondent is the absolute aggressor; she weaponised the threat of police action in an attempt to force a Nigerian Lawyer and PhD law researcher to produce a document serving her private interests. Threats, ultimatums, emotional pressure, demanding with menace, coercive messaging, and use of fear as leverage amount to conduct offensive to dignity. In their aggregate, they degrade and represent a humiliation of the Applicant. The Respondent’s conduct complained of is oppressive, demeaning, humiliating, and degrading of the Applicant. I, accordingly, find as facts that, the Respondent continued to direct a series of messages and communications to the Applicant containing threats, pressure tactics, and demands calculated to compel compliance. I specifically find that the Respondent communicated to the Applicant in terms which:
demanded that he provide written undertakings, admissions, or other assurances within deadlines fixed by her;
threatened that, in default of compliance, she would reopen or reactivate police complaints and related proceedings against him;
warned that she would “open cans of worms” if he failed to engage with her or resolve matters on terms acceptable to her;
invoked fear for the Applicant’s reputation, liberty, peace of mind, and future as means of pressure; and
maintained a pattern of communication designed not merely to convey grievance, but to overbear the will of the Applicant through apprehension of adverse consequences.
On the totality of the evidence, I find that these were not neutral or bona fide communications seeking ordinary redress. They were coercive communications employing threats of legal trouble, exposure, and renewed complaints as leverage. The Respondent thereby used electronic communications as instruments of intimidation and pressure in pursuit of private advantage. Such conduct is oppressive and wholly unacceptable. No person is entitled to deploy threats of police action, reputational harm, or further distress in order to compel concessions from another.
The Court condemned the Radiographer for disobeying outstanding Orders of the Court made in the course of the proceedings on the 2nd April, 2026 describing it as intolerable assault on the rule of law. In the words of Justice Musa:
Before concluding this judgment, this Court must address a deeply troubling aspect of the Respondent’s conduct during the pendency of these proceedings—specifically, her flagrant and un-purged defiance of the clear, unambiguous Interim Orders entered by this Court on 2nd April, 2026. At paragraph 9 of the Applicant’s further affidavit of 13th May, 2026 and in the Reply on Point of Law, the Applicant made the point that the Respondent refused to obey the interim Order of this Court entered on the 2nd day of April, 2026. By the explicit terms of Orders 5, 6, and 7 of that day, the Respondent was strictly directed to preserve all electronic communications, restrained from tampering with or deleting digital records, and mandated to file an Affidavit of Compliance within fourteen (14) days. The record shows that these orders were duly served. Yet, the Respondent chose a path of absolute silence, total non-compliance, and calculated disdain. She did not file the ordered affidavit, nor did she offer a shred of explanation for her non-compliance. The implications of this defiance strike at the very foundation of the administration of justice. Court orders are not polite invitations, nor are they advisory suggestions to be obeyed only when convenient. They are the binding commands of the Sovereign, issued through this Court, and backed by the full majesty of the law. When a party—particularly a highly trained healthcare professional whose very license demands absolute integrity—flatly flouts an explicit judicial directive, she commits an intolerable assault on the rule of law. To allow such lawlessness to pass without consequence would be to surrender the temple of justice to the whims of defiant litigants.
- Invasion of Privacy:
In finding for the Applicant that the Radiographer has been eroding his right to privacy constitutionally protected under section 37 of the constitution, the Court found as follows:
This court must protect the constitutional right to privacy generously bestowed by section 37 of the constitution otherwise, intimate human relationships would become constitutionally unprotected zones of perpetual electronic surveillance in which every vulnerable conversation, emotional disclosure, disagreement, reconciliation, or moment of weakness may secretly be transformed into permanently retrievable digital material for future strategic use. Such a position would dangerously erode the constitutional expectation of trust, emotional security, and communicational confidence which section 37 seeks to preserve. The Constitution protects not only physical security but also the dignity and psychological autonomy of citizens under section 34. A relationship cannot meaningfully retain its private character where one party, unknown to the other, systematically converts confidential exchanges into archived digital evidence capable of future deployment. The injury in such circumstances lies not merely in hearing the communication — for the Respondent was indeed a participant — but in the covert technological capture, indefinite retention, and informational control exercised over communications reasonably believed by the Applicant to belong within the protected sphere of private relational confidence.
The evolution of constitutional privacy jurisprudence in Nigeria, particularly as illuminated in Ojoma and Digital Rights Lawyers Initiative (supra), demonstrates that section 37 of the constitution protects citizens against unjustified intrusion into private communicational life, including unauthorized technological preservation of intimate communications in circumstances inconsistent with the constitutional values of dignity, trust, autonomy, and personal security.
I find and hold that the Respondent has been violating the Applicant’s right to privacy enshrined under section 37 of the amended 1999 constitution of the Federal Republic of Nigeria as alleged by recording his affairs, their phone conversations (both audio and video) and their affairs when they are physically together including their conversations without the Applicant’s consent and has been disseminating same to third parties still without the Applicant’s consent. The Respondent did not debunk these allegations. The continued retention and threatened deployment of such materials create an ongoing interference with the Applicant’s privacy interests protected by section 37 of the constitution. The Applicant is therefore entitled to declaratory and injunctive relief designed to protect his constitutional right to privacy. I find the claim of the Applicant proved in this wise. Accordingly, injunctive protection is appropriate.
Legal Representation:
The applicant was represented by DR. D.A. AWOSIKA, SAN, while the respondent was represented by C.U. AZUBUIKE, Esq.