Women Were Kept As Slaves For Over 30 Years in London

[Neptune]

Slave women of Lambeth were kept in horrific conditions, says charity

'Extraordinary case': detective inspector Kevin Hyland speaking outside Scotland Yard last night

JUSTIN DAVENPORT, CRIME EDITOR
JOSH PETTITT

Published: 22 November 2013 Updated: 11:10, 22 November 2013

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Three women alleged to have been kept as slaves for 30 years were held in “horrific” conditions, it emerged today.

The charity which helped to free the women from a house in Lambeth said the women were “quite traumatised” and “very relieved to be out”.

One of the victims is reported to have been refused medical treatment by her captors despite telling them that she believed she had suffered a stroke.

The couple, both aged 67, who are believed to be Asian, were arrested at the house at about 7.30am yesterday and released on bail after questioning last night.

One of the conditions of their release was that they should not return to the house where they lived.

Officers from Scotland Yard’s Human Trafficking Unit are investigating if other women were held captive at the “ordinary” address over the last three decades.

Police are now trying to piece together the events of the last 30 years and say that the inquiry could take several months.

Officers said the arrested couple are not British nationals and it was “unlikely” the alleged victims were related to them because of their nationalities.

Officers are still trying to establish the relationship between the three women and their captors but say there is no evidence of sexual abuse. The women described their captors as the “heads of the family.”

Speaking about the moment the women were freed, Aneeta Prem, founder of Freedom Charity, said: “It was a very emotional time.

“When we got the message they were outside the front door, the whole call centre erupted in cheers and there were tears, and everyone was incredibly emotional to know we had helped to rescue three ladies who had been held in such horrific conditions.” Ms Prem told ITV’s Daybreak programme she met the three women yesterday when they thanked her for “saving their lives.”

She told the programme : “When I met them, it was a humbling experience. They all threw their arms around me, and apart from crying enormously, they thanked the charity for the work Freedom had done in saving their lives.”

The women were rescued from the house in Lambeth last month after one of them saw Ms Prem on TV and contacted her charity for help. The victims — a 30-year-old British woman, a 57-year-old Irish woman and a 69-year-old Malaysian woman — are now being cared for at a safe location.

The British woman is said to have spent her entire life in captivity, only venturing out of the house in the company of at least one captors.

Ms Prem said the women felt they were in massive danger.

She said: “I don’t believe the neighbours knew anything about it at all.”

She said it would be “a very long journey” to rehabilitate the women, adding: “If you have spent your entire life in captivity and know nothing different, then even the smallest freedoms, the smallest things, you have no knowledge of. It’s going to be a difficult process.

The Irish woman contacted Freedom on October 18 to say she had been held against her will for more than 30 years, and that two others were held with her.

She and the British woman met charity workers and police on October 25 before returning to the address and rescuing the Malaysian woman. Ms Prem said the women felt they could trust her because they had seen her on TV.

After a “traumatic and very difficult” first call to Freedom staff, Ms Prem arranged a single point of contact for the women and began “secret negotiations” to bring them out.

She said: “We did it in a very slow way to gain their trust, because after 30 years of people being held in very difficult circumstances, one of the things we didn’t want to do was to add any more trauma.”

 

[IBelieve]

London 'slave' women 'beaten, brainwashed' in 30-year ordeal

AFP
November 23, 2013, 9:36 am

London (AFP) - Three women held captive in a London house for 30 years were beaten and brainwashed, police said Friday, as Britain struggled to comprehend its worst case of modern-day slavery.

Detectives are trying to understand the "invisible handcuffs" used to control the women, including a 30-year-old who had spent her entire life in servitude, Commander Steve Rodhouse of London's Metropolitan Police told reporters.

"What we have uncovered so far is a complicated and disturbing picture of emotional control over many years," Rodhouse said.

"Brainwashing would be a simple term but I think that belittles the years of emotional abuse these victims have had to endure."

He also revealed that the two suspects in the case, a man and a woman both aged 67 who were arrested at a house in south London on Thursday, had been detained before in the 1970s, but gave no further details.

Also suspected of immigration offences, the pair -- who are both foreign nationals -- have been provisionally released until January pending further investigations.

Their passports have been confiscated and they are not allowed to return to the house.

Rodhouse said the case was "unique".

The women were rescued on October 25, one week after first making secret telephone contact with a charity.

They are a 69-year-old Malaysian, a 57-year-old from Ireland and the 30-year-old Briton.

The Guardian newspaper reported that police were investigating the possibility that the women were held as part of a cult, and that the British captive was the child of the Irish woman and the 67-year-old man.

Police declined to comment on these allegations.

'Scourge of modern-day slavery'

Detectives do not believe the women were sexually exploited or had been the victims of human trafficking, but they told police they had been beaten.

"It is not as brutally obvious as women being physically restrained inside an address and not being allowed to leave," said Rodhouse.

Explaining the gap between the liberation of the women and the arrests of the two suspects, police said they had to be patient in trying to understand the women's accounts.

In Thursday's raid in the borough of Lambeth, the suspects' address was searched for 12 hours. Some 55 bags of evidence were seized, amounting to more than 2,500 exhibits.

All 37 officers in Scotland Yard's Human Trafficking Unit (HTU) -- which deals with modern-day slavery cases -- are working on the investigation.

Specially-trained officers are working with the women to try to understand what happened to them.

"This may take weeks, or many months," said Detective Inspector Kevin Hyland, who heads the unit.

He said officers did not believe the case was linked to any other groups and were not looking for further victims.

Scotland Yard is in touch with the Malaysian and Irish embassies but officers would not disclose if they had discussed names with the missions.

Hyland said that during their captivity the women had been able to leave the house, but only in carefully-controlled circumstances.

The case has sparked national soul-searching amid fears it is the tip of an iceberg.

Aneeta Prem, the founder of Freedom Charity which made contact with the women, said their plight had already prompted other people to come forward in the 24 hours since it was revealed.

The women, who are now being cared for in an unspecified location, were rescued after the Irish woman "found the courage" to call the charity on October 18 after seeing its work on a television programme.

The charity normally deals with forced marriage and honour-based abuse.

After secret telephone calls, the British and Irish women agreed to meet charity workers and police outside the house, before taking them back to the property to rescue the Malaysian.

Prem said of the moment when she met them: "They all threw their arms around me, and apart from crying enormously, they thanked the charity for the work Freedom had done in saving their lives."

Aidan McQuade, director of Anti-Slavery International, told AFP that some victims were unable to conceive survival outside the place where they are being held.

"With those sorts of constraints in place, it's possible to allow people out, because you're essentially allowing them out on a psychological leash where you know they come back because there's nowhere else to go," he said.

 

[WedgeAntilles]

Police investigating 30-year slave women case reveal victims met suspect through 'shared ideology' and 'lived together in a collective'

• Police are conducting house-to-house searches in Peckford Place, Brixton
• Arrested couple are from India and Tanzania and came to UK in 60s
  
• Detectives believe the suspects were known to authorities 'over decades'
  
• Malaysian woman, 69, Irish woman, 57, and British woman, 30, rescued
• Police reveal they were 'beaten' and 'brainwashed' but not sexually abused
• 37 officers on case and 2,500 items taken in 55 bags from Lambeth house
• Bailed couple banned from returning home and have their passports seized
• Freedom Charity say slavery-related calls have increased five-fold this week
  

By STEPHEN WRIGHT, REBECCA CAMBER, ARTHUR MARTIN and EMMA THOMAS
PUBLISHED: 13:47 GMT, 22 November 2013 | UPDATED: 16:48 GMT, 23 November 2013

Two of the three women held as slaves for at least 30 years had lived in a 'collective' sharing the same political ideology as their captors, police have revealed. Scotland Yard revealed fresh details of the 'highly complex and difficult investigation' as officers conducted house-to-house inquiries in Peckford Place, Brixton, south London, this afternoon where the three women were found.A man and woman, both 67, who were arrested on Thursday morning as part of the investigation, are of Indian and Tanzanian origin and came to the UK in the 1960s, police said.

They have since been released on bail to a date in January.

House to house: Police are knocking on doors in Peckford Place, Brixton, as part of the investigation into three women held as slaves. Officers are not revealing the exact address of where they were found

'Difficult': Scotland Yard revealed fresh details of the 'highly complex and difficult investigation' as officers conducted house-to-house inquiries in Peckford Place, Brixton, south London

Scotland Yard Commander Steve Rodhouse said police were not releasing the exact address.
Photographs from the scene show most of the properties in Peckford Place are flats, many of them recently built, with a mixture of two, three, and four bedrooms. It is believed to be populated by a mix of social housing tenants and professionals.

The road is about half a mile from Brixton tube station and a three-bedroom flat in the street costs upwards of around £240,000. To rent the same size property costs £1,300 per month. The latest details have emerged as Aneeta Prem, founder of Freedom Charity, says the charity has seen a five-fold increase in calls since the women were rescued.In a statement this afternoon, Mr Rodhouse said: 'I am now in a position to provide further details about what we believe to be the background to this operation and the chain of events that has unfolded over the last few weeks.'I have said from the start that our priority was the safety of the women who are the victims at the heart of this.

Peckford Place: A 30-year-old British woman, a 57-year-old Irish woman and a 69-year-old Malaysian woman were rescued from a house in Lambeth, south London, last month, after one of the women called a support charity asking for help

'That does not just mean their physical safety but their emotional and mental well being also. To gain the trust and confidence of highly traumatised victims takes time, and this must move at their pace, not anyone else’s.' Mr Rodhouse said they were working to support the victims as well as gain valuable evidence. 'Part of the agreement on 25 October when they were removed from the suspects’ address was that police would not at that stage take any action,' he continued. 'Since that date we have been working to gain their trust and evidence, that came to fruition on 21 November when we were in a position to make arrests.

'Between 25 October and 21 November none of the three victims were reported missing to the police.'I am also now in a position to provide more information as to the background of this highly complex and difficult investigation.'The suspects are of Indian and Tanzanian origin that came to the UK in the 1960s. We believe that two of the victims met the male suspect in London through a shared political ideology, and that they lived together at an address that you could effectively call a ‘collective’.

TIMELINE: HOW THE 'LAMBETH SLAVES' WERE FOUND AND SAVED

October 18 - The Irish victim, 57, contacts Freedom Charity after seeing its founder on TV. She was 'distraught' on the phone and said she had been held captive for 30 years with two others. She was also said to mention her 'friend' who was being refused medical help after suffering a suspected stroke.

October 25 - She and the youngest victim, 30, meet the charity and police at a secret location before heading back to rescue the Malaysian woman, 69. They are taken to a 'place of safety.

November 21 - Foreign couple, both 67, are arrested on suspicion of immigration offences as well as slavery offences. They are bailed until January.

'The people involved, the nature of that collective and how it operated is all subject to our investigation and we are slowly and painstakingly piecing together more information. I will not give any further information about it.'Somehow that collective came to an end and the women ended up continuing to live with the suspects. How this resulted in the women living in this way for over 30 years is what are seeking to establish, but we believe emotional and physical abuse has been a feature of all the victims’ lives.

'The 30 year old woman does have a birth certificate; however that is all the official documentation we can find. We believe she has lived with the suspects and the other victims all her life, but of course at this early stage we are still seeking out evidence.' Mr Rodhouse also said officers were taking 'every step' to protect the identities of the three victims.'I understand the huge public interest in this case, the desire for information and the shock that it has caused.

'However, we must take every step to protect the identities of the victims who are understandably emotionally fragile and highly vulnerable. For that reason will not provide any information that will lead to the identification of the suspects or these women that require our every effort to protect them.' Ms Prem said her charity has seen a five-fold increase in calls since the women were rescued. She said: 'We have seen an extraordinary rise in calls to our helpline since the rescue of the three women came into the public domain. We received five times as many calls in 24 hours as we normally do in one week and are needing to increase our resources to cope with this extra demand.'

Enquiries: A PCSO speaks to a driver near flats in Brixton, south London, as police are conducting house-to-house inquires in the area where three women were allegedly held as slaves for at least 30 years were rescued

She told the BBC that the three women were 'quite stressed' at the amount of detail released.

Abuse: All three women are believed to have suffered 'emotional and physical abuse', Metropolitan police commander Steve Rodhouse said

'These women have had traumatic and distributing experiences, which they have revealed to us. What needs to happen now is that the three victims, who have begun a long process of recovery, are able to go through their rehabilitation undisturbed, without being identified.'The couple suspected of keeping three women as slaves for 30 years used cult-like techniques to brainwash their victims, it has been claimed.

The extraordinary psychological control they exerted meant the three were kept captive in ‘invisible handcuffs’. Local politicians and community leaders briefed on the case compared their ordeal to people trapped in a religious cult.

The details emerged as detectives revealed the two suspects arrested over the case were known to police and had been detained in the 1970s. They also said the pair are being investigated over unspecified immigration offences as well as allegations relating to slavery.

The revelations will lead to questions as to why they were in the country in the first place – and whether police missed opportunities to rescue the women, who were frequently beaten. Pressure was also growing on local social services, who today refused to say whether they had been in contact with the women during their ordeal.

Police said the women and their captors may have appeared a normal family to the outside world. But critics said it beggared belief that the victims had been held captive in an ordinary house for three decades without anyone noticing. Sources said a multi-agency review was likely to take place to establish how the case had been allowed to slip through the net.

Police presence: Officers stood outside flats in Brixton today as more details emerged about the three women held captive for 30 years

Investigation: Detective Inspector Kevin Hyland said outside Scotland Yard today said that the women were beaten but not sexually abused or chained up by the couple, who were first arrested in the 1970s

Mr Rodhouse admitted that over 30 years the victims ‘would probably have come into contact with public services, including our own’.

He added: ‘That’s something we need to examine fully.’ But he insisted that the case ‘was not as brutally obvious as women being physically restrained inside an address and not being allowed to lead’.

Instead it was a ‘complicated and disturbing picture of emotional control’, with the couple using cult-like techniques to apply huge psychological pressure on the women, leaving them terrified to try to escape.

Tonight the whereabouts of the couple remains unclear. They were released on bail on conditions that include a stipulation they are not permitted to return to their home from where the victims were rescued from last month.

The three women were discovered in a house in the South London borough of Lambeth (pictured), which runs to Waterloo, Stockwell, Brixton, Vauxhall, Streatham and Clapham areas and houses 300,000 people

The police search of the address, believed to be in Peckford Place, Brixton, took 12 hours. Officers seized 55 bags of evidence containing more than 2,500 exhibits.

The captives – a 30-year-old British woman, a 57-year-old Irish woman and a 69-year-old Malaysian woman – are in the care of a charity. The case came to light after the ‘very distressed’ Irishwoman rang a charity to say she had been held against her will in a house for more than 30 years.

Discovery: Three female slaves, one held for more than 30 years, were discovered in London after one contacted a charity run by Aneeta Prem (pictured)

She was also said to mention her 'friend' who was being refused medical help after suffering a suspected stroke.

At least one of the women was physically abused, police said.

Sources said the women were occasionally allowed out on their own to run errands.

But they never thought of fleeing as their captors threatened to beat them and said no one would look after them if they ran away.

Charity workers believe the victims are suffering from Stockholm syndrome, a psychological state in which hostages express empathy towards their kidnappers.

Police would not reveal the nationality of the suspects but said they have been in the country for many years.

They are checking whether the pair have ever been members of any well-known religious cults.

Sources suggested that a more likely scenario is that they ran their own mini-cult.

Mr Rodhouse would not say why the suspects were arrested in the 1970s, whether it was over links to a cult or whether they were convicted of any offence, adding that the investigation ‘will take considerable time’.

Police would not say whether other public bodies, such as social services, education authorities or hospitals, had had contact with the victims while they were captives.

Mr Rodhouse also refused to disclose whether any of the victims are related to each other or to the suspects, and whether the youngest victim – who is said to have spent her entire life in servitude – had been to school or her birth registered.

He said officers are trying to understand ‘what were the invisible handcuffs being used to exert such a degree of control over these women’.

Police do not believe the case is one of sexual exploitation or human trafficking, he said, but to label the investigation as domestic servitude or forced labour is ‘far too simplistic’. ‘What we have uncovered so far is a complicated and disturbing picture of emotional control over many years.

Brainwashing would be the simplest term, yet that belittles the years of emotional abuse these victims have had to endure. We believe at this stage to the outside world this may have appeared to be a normal family.

‘Whilst we do not believe that they [the victims] have been subjected to sexual abuse, we know that there has been physical abuse, described as beatings – however there is nothing to suggest that the suspects were violent towards others.’

Asked about those who might doubt the women’s allegations, he said: ‘I think people have no right to be sceptical. It is clearly different, and unique, and hugely troubling.

‘Everything indicates that what we have here is three women who have endured many, many years of emotional abuse.

Lambeth Council refused to comment on whether social services or the local education authority had any dealings with the occupants of the house. The local mental health authority also declined to comment.

London Assembly member Baroness Jones, who is deputy chairman of the Police and Crime Committee, called for an inquiry.

‘It’s fairly staggering that no one knew anything and it seems at no point was anyone logged as being part of the system,’ she said.

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For three decades they were locked in by terror, reports Rebecca Camber

The ordeal of the slaves took place behind a facade of normality in Lambeth, South East London

To their unsuspecting neighbours they appeared a normal family.

But behind closed doors the alleged masters of the three London slaves are said to have exerted a ‘cult-like’ hold, controlling them through constant psychological and emotional abuse.

They were left so traumatised and dependent that they did not dare run away on the occasions they were allowed to leave the house.

The women were given ‘some controlled freedom’, venturing outside to shop locally for groceries and other household supplies on the orders of the captors.

Physically and mentally abused, they lived in terror of the couple who forced them into a life of domestic servitude. Throughout their captivity, the victims were said to have waited on the 67-year-old couple hand and foot, cooking, cleaning and washing clothes for them.

The three women apparently spent their days carrying out mundane household chores in an ordinary, unremarkable house in the heart of south London.

They were allowed to watch television, although they were restricted to viewing only news channels.

They also appeared to have access to a mobile phone which they used to make their escape.

Police believe the victims were regularly beaten, but unlike other recent slavery cases, the women were not tied up or physically restrained.

Yet they lived in such abject terror of their controllers that for 30 years they never considered the possibility of escape until they happened to watch a television programme on forced marriages which prompted one of them to call the Freedom Charity for help.

Aneeta Prem, founder of the charity, said: ‘Considering the horrendous circumstances they’ve been in, they’re doing remarkably well.

‘This is the start of a very, very long journey. ‘For two of the women, they have to start to rebuild their lives, and for the youngest, the 30-year-old, she has to start her life from scratch.’

Former Olympics minister Dame Tessa Jowell, who represents Dulwich and West Norwood, the area in which the house is located, has been briefed by Scotland Yard detectives and Lambeth borough commanders about the case.

She said: ‘This is a hugely complex case which will be understood through the information provided by the three women, who are now in a safe place, being debriefed by people skilled to deal with these highly traumatised individuals.

‘It will be important to be patient as the debriefing may take many weeks into months and only once that has been complete will we really understand how this happened, what actually happened and who knew what was going on.

‘It’s clear from the briefings that I have had and also that the police have provided that, on the information available so far, this is not a situation that has any parallels with the Austrian or American imprisonment cases.’

Press conference: Speaking today Commander Steve Rodhouse (centre) spoke of trying to find out how the three women were held with 'invisible handcuffs'

Meanwhile, David Cameron has promised action over modern slavery. He backed new laws clamping down on the offence, including a life sentence for perpetrators. The Prime Minister’s official spokesman said: ‘It’s utterly appalling. The importance of this issue and the importance of ensuring that it is brought into the open is exactly why the Government is taking through the House the modern-day slavery bill.’

His comments came as a Home Office minister said as many as 6,000 people may be living in servitude across the UK.

James Brokenshire said: ‘It is difficult to genuinely quantify the problem, though one organisation has said the number is as high as 6,000. If you see something you think is suspicious, that doesn’t quite add up, if you have natural concerns that something does not feel quite right, then report it to the police and they will investigate. I don’t think anyone across London can think this is something that would not happen in their area.’

The slavery bill will introduce a life sentence for slave-owners and create a new commissioner to push government departments and agencies to act on the issue.

Theresa May also expressed her shock today. A spokesman said: ‘While the police need to get to the bottom of exactly what happened here, the Home Secretary has made clear her determination to tackle the scourge of modern slavery.

'IT MAY BE IMPOSSIBLE FOR THEM TO RECOVER': EXPERT ON SLAVERY FEARS THE 'LAMBETH SLAVES' MAY NOT COPE IN THE OUTSIDE WORLD

The 'slave women' rescued from a south London house after more than 30 years may find it impossible to recover from their ordeal, according to a leading psychologist.

And it will be especially difficult for the youngest woman - the 30-year-old Briton - because she will never have known any other way of life than behind the door of her Lambeth house.

Dr James Thompson, who specialises in captivity and trauma at the University of London, said it will be worse for them than a 'lifer' being released after decades inside, with the closest parallel being a wife caught in an abusive relationship.

He said: 'Someone who has been in jail for more than twenty years sometimes cannot come to terms with two handles on each side of a door.

'These people can find it impossible on the outside, and UK prisons treat them pretty well. They are certainly not maltreated or abused, as it sounds may have occurred in this case.

'I would say the closest analogy is a woman who has been in an abusive relationship and finds it very hard to leave.

'She keeps going back because there is love on one side, in spite of the violence on the other. If you are in an abusive situation, you can become dependent at the same time.

'It would not have been easy to make that first phone call, because not all the women necessarily wanted to be found. And they may not even have known they had to be rescued.

'For instance, the 30-year-old who has been held all her life is likely to have a different attitude about what happened.

'She may find it harder to adjust than the others as she will not know any other way of life whereas the older women may have been 20 or 30 when they arrived at the house.

'They may want their captors to be punished, or be concerned for their welfare because there will be a relationship between them after all this time. There will be different emotions to cope with'.

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[Sinkie]

Bloody Chinks!!!