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18/04/2012
Homeless Men 'Exploited And Held Captive' On Caravan Site
Up to 24 men were held in captivity, made to work for free and abused and beaten by seven members of the same traveller family, a court has heard.
Police found men living in squalor at the Green Acres caravan park in Bedfordshire last September.
Prosecutors allege that 6 men and one woman from the Connors family controlled and exploited the homeless people, making large amounts of money.
The seven each deny charges of conspiring to hold a person in servitude and conspiracy to require a person to perform forced or compulsory labour.
The court heard how victims were recruited from homeless centres, soup kitchens or simply off the streets and made to carry out daily physical labour.
Police say that when they raided the caravan park they found men with shaved heads, with one of the workers describing the site as “like a concentration camp”.
The alleged victim, who cannot be named for legal reasons, was living on benefits in Brighton when Tommy Connors Snr and two of his sons recruited him from a day centre, it was claimed.
Offered a job, £50 in cash and a roof over his head they took him to a site in Burgess Hill, West Sussex, where Tommy Connors Snr was living, it is alleged.
The Connors are alleged to have coerced their labourers into working for their block paving business for up to 19 hours a day, six days a week.
Prosecutor Frances Oldham QC said "Men were targeted because they were vulnerable, and kept on sites like camps under orders not to leave.
"Their heads were shaved. They were paid little or nothing for their work. They were on occasions verbally abused and on occasions beaten.
"They may not in the strict sense have been slaves but they were not free men.
"The evidence suggests that the Connors family made very substantial amounts of money through the exploitation of the servitude and forced labour of their workers."
(H)
Police found men living in squalor at the Green Acres caravan park in Bedfordshire last September.
Prosecutors allege that 6 men and one woman from the Connors family controlled and exploited the homeless people, making large amounts of money.
The seven each deny charges of conspiring to hold a person in servitude and conspiracy to require a person to perform forced or compulsory labour.
The court heard how victims were recruited from homeless centres, soup kitchens or simply off the streets and made to carry out daily physical labour.
Police say that when they raided the caravan park they found men with shaved heads, with one of the workers describing the site as “like a concentration camp”.
The alleged victim, who cannot be named for legal reasons, was living on benefits in Brighton when Tommy Connors Snr and two of his sons recruited him from a day centre, it was claimed.
Offered a job, £50 in cash and a roof over his head they took him to a site in Burgess Hill, West Sussex, where Tommy Connors Snr was living, it is alleged.
The Connors are alleged to have coerced their labourers into working for their block paving business for up to 19 hours a day, six days a week.
Prosecutor Frances Oldham QC said "Men were targeted because they were vulnerable, and kept on sites like camps under orders not to leave.
"Their heads were shaved. They were paid little or nothing for their work. They were on occasions verbally abused and on occasions beaten.
"They may not in the strict sense have been slaves but they were not free men.
"The evidence suggests that the Connors family made very substantial amounts of money through the exploitation of the servitude and forced labour of their workers."
(H)
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