In2town UK News: slavery

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Sunday, 12 January 2014

Slavery case: woman describes cousin's time in Brixton commune

Eleri Morgan tells ITV News her cousin Sian Davies lived in a commune led by slavery suspect Aravindan Balakrishnan, and speaks of how Sian wrote letters home, saying she was "looking after the mothers of the world" 1:21PM GMT 26 Nov 2013

Slavery suspect Aravindan Balakrishnan was more of a "toothless old man" than a "charismatic" figure, according to the cousin of a woman who lived in his commune for more than 20 years.

Eleri Morgan claims her cousin Sian Davies died in 1997 after mysteriously falling out of a bathroom window in the house the group were living in in Brixton, south London. Ms Davies was kept in hospital for seven months after the fall, but her family claim they were not told.

Ms Morgan said Ms Davies wrote home talking of how she was looking after the "mothers of the world" but was not allowed to see her cousin. Her letters always spoke of "comrade Bala" - the name used to refer to Balakrishnan.

A senior council source confirmed that Balakrishnan, 73, and his wife Chanda, 67, were arrested last week by police amid allegations that they held three women for more than 30 years. It is claimed they were leaders of an extremist Maoist collective.

The alleged victims - a 30-year-old Briton, a 57-year-old Irishwoman and a 69-year-old Malaysian - are alleged to have suffered years of "physical and mental abuse" at the hands of the pair.

Slavery case: the high-flying student who vanished into a Maoist sect

26 Nov 2013

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24 Nov 2013

London slavery: Make-up was first request to restore humanity

25 Nov 2013

Two arrested ran a revolutionary Communist collective

24 Nov 2013

Slavery case: Police disclose how victims met alleged captor in political 'collective'

23 Nov 2013

Slavery case: suspects named as former Maoist collective leaders

25 Nov 2013

House-to-house inquiries have been carried out in Peckford Place in Brixton, where the three women were found. Police have confirmed that there are ongoing inquiries relating to a total of 13 addresses, all in London, linked to the couple.

CrimeNews »UK News »Telegraph TV »News Video »

Slavery case: man arrested on suspicion of holding three women pictured for the first time

By Alice Philipson

5:18PM GMT 26 Nov 2013

The first pictures of a man arrested as part of a slavery investigation in South London have emerged.

Aravindan Balakrishnan in 1997 (ITV NEWS)

Comrade Bala, whose real name is Aravindan Balakrishnan, can be seen wearing a brown jacket and blue trousers as he attends the inquest into the death of commune member Sian Davies in 1997.

It comes as a Malaysian family came forward to claim that a woman allegedly held as a slave for 30 years is a relation who disappeared virtually without trace after joining a Maoist sect.

Kamar Mautum, a retired teacher, said she believed her 69-year-old sister, Aishah, was one of the women who had allegedly been held captive by the leaders of a 1970s Communist collective for 30 years.

Exclusive interview: I can heal Malaysian 'slave', says sister

26 Nov 2013

Slavery case: Not all political extremists are mad – and I should know

26 Nov 2013

My cousin's time in 'slave' commune

26 Nov 2013

London slavery: Make-up was first request to restore humanity

25 Nov 2013

Slavery case: the high-flying student who vanished into a Maoist sect

26 Nov 2013

Maoist collective member died after falling out of a window

26 Nov 2013

She said her disappearance had caused extreme heartache for her family.

Aishah had studied at one of Malaysia’s most elite schools, eventually winning a Commonwealth scholarship to study surveying in London.

A still from the ITV video shows Aravindan Balakrishnan being followed by two women (ITV NEWS)

She moved to Britain in 1968 with her fiancé and dreamed of balancing an exciting career with a family, but was soon involved in extremist politics, eventually giving up everything to follow a Maoist doctrine.

She allegedly fell under the spell of Balakrishnan and his partner Chanda, who were last week arrested on suspicion of holding three women against their will for more than three decades in south London.

Speaking from her home near Kuala Lumpur, Kamar said their mother’s dying wish had been to know what had happened to her daughter, who never returned.

Kamar told The Daily Telegraph: “I have felt so choked without her for years and years. She was so talented, she was the apple of my mother’s eye. She asked for her on her death bed.” She added: “When my mother died she

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Slavery case: Not all political extremists are mad - and I should know

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Monday, 25 November 2013

Three women slaves: two suspected of slavery were previously arrested in 1970s

Police say they are seeking to understand the "invisible handcuffs" that kept three women bound in slavery and domestic servitude for three decades in a house in Lambeth By Martin Evans, Crime Correspondent

6:58PM GMT 22 Nov 2013

Two people suspected of enslaving three women for more than 30-years have been on the radar of the authorities since the 1970s, it was revealed on Friday.

The man and woman, who are understood to be illegal immigrants, were first arrested by the Metropolitan Police almost 40-years ago.

They were detained on Thursday morning as part of an investigation into slavery but were bailed to a date in January after several hours of questioning.

A spokesman for the Prime Minister, David Cameron, said he regarded the case as “utterly appalling”.

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24 Nov 2013

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22 Nov 2013

Three women 'held as slaves' in south London home

22 Nov 2013

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22 Nov 2013

Detective Inspector Kevin Hyland addresses the media outside New Scotland Yard

Police revealed further details on Friday of the shocking conditions in which their three alleged victims were kept.

The women, a 69-year-old from Malaysia, a 57-year-old from Ireland and 30-year-old Briton, were allegedly subjected to decades of physical abuse and beatings after being brainwashed by their captors.

Detective Inspector Kevin Hyland of the Metropolitan Police’s human trafficking unit said: “Whilst we do not believe that they 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 outside of the address.”

The youngest of the women has spent her entire life in the house, but is understood to have had some form of basic education.

The three women were only allowed to leave their house under carefully controlled circumstances and were said to be terrified of their captors.

But detectives explained that far from living in isolation, the group were probably known to the authorities including social services.

It has also been reported that one of the women was denied medical attention after suffering a stroke while inside the house.

Commander Steve Rodhouse from the Metropolitan Police said: “We believe at this stage to the outside world this may have appeared to be a 'normal' family.

“This does mean that over the course of many decades the people at the heart of this investigation and their victims will probably have come into contact with public services, including our own, that is something we must examine fully, and it is too early to provide details.”

He added: “What I can say with some certainty is that the two suspects in the case were arrested by the Metropolitan Police in the 1970s , some considerable time ago.”

A spokesman for Lambeth Council refused to discuss whether social services had any contact with the group.

Police were tipped off about the case by the Freedom charity when the 57-year-old women plucked up the courage to report her ordeal after watching a news report about modern slavery.

Specially trained charity workers spent several days winning her trust before she and the younger woman escaped on October 25 to a pre-arranged location where they were met by waiting police officers.

Detectives then returned to the house and removed the eldest woman to safety.

Almost a month went by before the two alleged captors were arrested by officers from the Met’s Human Trafficking Unit.

On Friday officers who have spent years investigating the growing scandal of slavery and domestic servitude admitted that this case was completely “unique” in their experience.

Mr Rodhouse said what his officers had uncovered was a “complicated and disturbing picture of emotional control over many years”.

He said to many in the outside world the group may have appeared to be an ordinary family in an ordinary house which might explain why it went under the radar for so long.

Describing the circumstances in which the three alleged victims were held, Mr Rodhouse said: “It is not as brutally obvious as women being physically restrained inside an address and not being allowed to leave.”

DI Hyland said 37 officers were working on the case and had removed 55 bags of evidence and 12,500 exhibits from the “ordinary” looking house.

Police also confirmed that they had been in contact with officials in Malaysia and Ireland.

DI Hyland said: “We are unpicking a story that spans at least 30 years of these women's lives, and all of this requires police activity to turn that into evidence.”

The two people arrested are understood to be of Asian origin and have also been arrested on suspicion of immigration offences.

CrimeNews »UK News »Martin Evans »

In politics

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Modern-day slavery on our own doorstep

Comments

Anyone who imagined that slavery ended in the late 18th century with the heroic campaigning of William Wilberforce, followed by the rigorous enforcement efforts of the Royal Navy, will have been shocked by the discovery of three women apparently living in servitude in south London. But for those who have followed the burgeoning criminal activities of modern-day slavers in recent decades, it will have come as no surprise. There may well be hundreds, if not thousands, of people trapped in similar circumstances in this country, albeit not for such an inordinate length of time. Police believe one of the three women may have spent her entire 30 years effectively in captivity.

Details of precisely what has happened, however, are sketchy to say the least. The police have refused to disclose the location in which the women were held, or the identity of their alleged captors. They have revealed that two people said to have been responsible had previously been arrested more than 30 years ago, and may be illegal immigrants known to the social services. In which case, why was nothing done before?

The immediate response of many campaigners has been to demand tougher laws; and, indeed, the Home Office is preparing a Modern Slavery Bill to address some of the issues. But there are too many unanswered questions about this affair for a proper judgment to be made about whether it is emblematic of a wider problem in this country. Certainly, if this case is to serve as an exemplar for why legislation is needed, then we are entitled to know much more about it.

This is not to be blasé about the matter of enslavement. No one can feel anything other than abhorrence at such practices. But where this country is concerned, we should put matters into some perspective. When it published a Global Slavery Index recently, the Walk Free Foundation estimated that there may be as many as 29 million people living in some form of slavery worldwide, with the highest numbers in China, India, Pakistan and several Arab nations. Yet on its index of 164 countries, the United Kingdom ranked 162nd, doing better than anywhere save Iceland and Ireland.

That said, there has definitely been an increase in people-trafficking to the UK in recent years, as criminals have taken advantage of the greater ease of travel through a borderless Europe. Although we have stayed out of the Schengen area, we still need to ensure that our frontiers remain tightly controlled – something that has become harder to achieve with the expansion of the EU. As Mark Harper, the immigration minister, observed this week, we are powerless to stop the free movement of peoples from 27 countries.

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Slavery case: Police disclose how victims met alleged captor in political 'collective'

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Slavery Case: Two arrested ran a revolutionary Communist collective

Police in Peckford Place, Stockwell, where the women were held captive Photo: JANE MINGAY FOR THE TELEGRAPH By Martin Evans, and Sam Marsden

10:00PM GMT 24 Nov 2013

The two suspects in the south London slavery case ran a Communist collective in the 1970s that worshipped the Chinese leader Chairman Mao, the Daily Telegraph has learned.

The husband and wife, who are from India and Tanzania originally, were arrested last week on suspicion of holding three women against their will for more than 30-years.

It is alleged they subjected them to beatings and emotional abuse and were only allowed to leave their Brixton flat in controlled circumstances.

The pair, who are both aged 69, arrived in Britain in the 1960s and were associated with a number of extreme left political groups known to the police and security services.

Last month a 57-year-old Irish woman contacted the Freedom Charity to report that she and two other women were being held as slaves.

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Working with the police, the charity was able to remove her, a 69-year-old from Malaysia and a 30-year-old British woman, to a place of safety.

Last week detectives from the Metropolitan Police’s human trafficking unit moved in and arrested the couple who had remained at the address.

Police who investigate allegations of slavery and domestic servitude have described the situation as unique and accept the women were not physically restrained by their alleged captors.

They have said as part of the “extremely complex” investigation they are seeking to understand the “invisible handcuffs” that prevented the women from leaving the group.

The Daily Telegraph has learned that the couple arrested last week were well known to the police having set up a notorious Communist squat in 1974 and have both served prison sentences associated with their political activities.

Based in Brixton, south London, the couple set about recruiting women from other far left groups, encouraging them to engage in “revolutionary work”.

The organisation published political pamphlets calling for the downfall of Western Capitalism and also ran lectures, study groups and held film screenings.

In 1978 police raided their premises, arresting 14 members of the organisation, including the two leaders, who were later jailed after being convicted of assaulting a police officer.

After the headquarters were closed, the organisation is understood to have broken up with the two heads of the group moving into a squat in Brixton with a number of their followers.

The collective were later given social housing by Lambeth Council and moved into a large house in the Herne Hill area.

A neighbour who remembered them said they lived at the property for about six years until around 2003.

She said they were very private and would always leave the house in groups.

The woman, who did not want to be named, said: “I remember three or four of them living there for about five or six years. I remember an Indian man who used to take the women shopping. He always wore a necktie. There was no other man.

“There was also a tall, slim white woman and another little Asian woman. They would never speak. We always saw them coming in and out with shopping but they never spoke.

"One day the police came and told me an older woman living in that house had died falling out of a window at the back. They asked if I had seen anything. I said no and they never got back to me.”

Commander Steve Rodhouse from the Metropolitan Police, who is leading the investigation into allegations of slavery, confirmed that the two older women had first met their alleged captors through a political group.

He said: “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'.”

He added: “Somehow that collective came to an end and how 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 couple have been bailed until a date in January and are not allowed to return to the three bedroom housing association flat, where the alleged abuse took place.

CrimeNews »UK News »Mobile »Martin Evans »

In politics

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Slavery case: two arrested ran a revolutionary Communist collective