A LECTURER from the University of Central Lancashire left his hard up students behind to visit war-torn Southern Sudan -- to investigate the slave trade.

Broadcast journalism lecturer, Paul Egglestone, has returned from filming a documentary to highlight the plight of hundreds of people caught up in the African slave trade.

The Dangerous Adventures of Baroness Cox will be screened on Monday at 10.35pm as part of BBC One's Everyman series.

Paul, from Lancaster, is co-producer of the documentary which focuses on the human rights advocate, Baroness Caroline Cox, deputy speaker in the House of Commons.

The Baroness teams with national president of Christian Solidarity World Wide, Stuart Windsor, on a mission to free the Dinka tribe slaves from traders in Sudan -- a country that has been in the throws of civil war for more than 20 years. Mr Egglestone said: "I have done 20 programmes on people living on the extreme edges of faith. I find it fascinating that they don't doubt what they are doing is right and are totally committed to their cause.

"Baroness Cox is unbelievable. She has been to a lot of places where there is a human rights issue such as Burma, Russia, Kosovo and so on."

In the programme, the Baroness and her team hand over $50,000 -- around £30,000 -- to purchase the slaves from Arab dealers before setting them free in their own country.

But her actions has sparked debate from human rights groups who say the Baroness is fuelling the county's slave trade by purchasing the captives for cash.

When he is not filming documentaries for Granada, ITV and Channel 4 and running his Lancaster-based production company, 421 Productions Limited, Mr Egglestone is a part-time television lecturer at the Preston university.