‘Slave’ house neighbours ‘saw women walking about’

Police are interviewing residents of the block of London flats where three women were allegedly held as slaves for 30 years. Speaking to Channel 4 News yesterday one neighbour said that he often saw the women walking around the street and even talking to the police.

Marius, a resident of Peckford Place in Brixton, claimed that he saw the enslaved women everyday, walking around outside and even talking to officers.

“That’s why I don’t know how they couldn’t go to the police. They even talked to the police. I’ve actually seen them talk to the police. That’s why it’s crazy to me.

“Let’s just say they’re the nosy neighbours of the area, they talk to the police, they don’t talk to people.

“If the police thought anything of it – they’re the ones supposed to be keeping the community safe – they would have said something.”

A second neighbour said he had also seen the women, along with the couple they lived with, when he visited their house and all five of them came to the door to answer.

The house – now identified as Peckford Place, Brixton – is a new-build, from 2005, which means that the women and their captors must have moved house between their release and the start of their alleged imprisonment in the 70s.

Arrests

A man and woman, both 67, of Indian and Tanzanian origin, have been bailed following their arrests on Thursday in connection with the investigation into slavery and domestic servitude.

The alleged victims – a 30-year-old British woman, a 57-year-old Irish woman and a 69-year-old Malaysian woman – were rescued from a residential address last month. It is thought that the 30-year-old woman had been held in servitude all her life.

The Met said the women were removed from the address on 25 October, but the arrests were not made at that time as the victims had asked them not to take immediate action.

It emerged on Friday that the suspects, who have been bailed until a date in January, were previously arrested in the 1970s, although police have not said why they were detained.

The case came to light after the Irish woman rang a charity to say she had been held against her will in a house in London for more than 30 years.

Commander Steve Rodhouse, said: “We are starting to carry out house to house enquiries, seeking information from local residents near the house where we arrested the suspects.”

He added: “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’.

“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.”

Surge in calls to charity

The police operation was set in train after the Irish woman rang a charity called Freedom to say she had been held against her will in a house in London for more than 30 years.

The charity’s founder Aneeta Prem 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.

“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.”

‘Tip of the iceberg’

The discovery of the three women could be “tip of a rather large iceberg”, said Labour MP Frank Field, who is chairman of the Modern Slavery Bill evidence review.

Speaking to BBC Breakfast, Mr Field said: “We’ve had this example of domestic slavery but people are being imported to work, almost for nothing, in industry.

“We’ve got begging gangs being developed, with people being imported. And of course we’ve got the whole question of how children are being imported to work. It’s a whole range of issues we’ve got to wake up to.

“If you think where other countries have started to be serious about this, the numbers have risen sharply.

“I would have thought it’s safe to act on the assumption that the examples we’ve had in the last few months are the tip of a rather large iceberg.”

The Modern Slavery Bill, which is due to published in the coming weeks, is designed to increase the penalty to life imprisonment and create an anti-slavery commissioner.