Madeleine McCann cops want to raid homes of three prime suspects who were working at holiday complex

1EmailBritish officers believe the men would have known the layout of the Ocean Club at Praia da Luz and been aware of the best escape routes for anyone taking a child

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Baby Boy Death: Three Arrested Over Murder

Police detain two men and a woman after the seven-week-old child died from serious head injuries in a "tragic case". 10:25pm UK, Friday 31 January 2014

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Medals awarded to three generations of the same family are to be sold at auction

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Dunbar: Three Teens From Same School Killed

The small seaside town of Dunbar is in mourning after the three students were killed in a car crash. 2:26pm UK, Tuesday 26 November 2013

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

By Alice Philipson

5:18PM GMT 26 Nov 2013

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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.

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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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Tamworth crash: Three dead in four-vehicle crash involving a lorry

7 Dec 2013 11:19A Scania lorry, a Hyundai Getz, a Peugeot 207 and a Mercedes car were involved in the crash, which happened near a garden centre         

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Nick Clegg urged to help British mum defy Italian court order to return with son aged three

Saddened: Nick CleggGetty

Deputy Prime Minister Nick Clegg has been urged to intervene in the case of a British mother who has been ordered to go back to Italy after fleeing an abusive boyfriend with her three-year-old son.

The mother fears her child will be put in a home and she arrested after an Italian family court judge demanded she return under anti-kidnapping laws.

Now, Plaid Cymru leader Elfyn Llwyd has pleaded with the UK government to take action after the woman was subjected to controversial child abduction laws under the Hague Convention.

TheLiberal Democrat leader described the case as

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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

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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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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 »

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Three women 'held captive for 30 years' in London: live

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Three women 'held captive for 30 years' in London: as it happened

By Matthew Sparkes

6:23PM GMT 21 Nov 2013

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• Police rescue three 'traumatised' women
• Two people aged 67 arrested
• House is somewhere in Lambeth, south London
• Police have 'never seen anything of this magnitude'

Latest

18.23 We're closing this live blog down now. For the latest news on the south London slavery case throughout the evening read our full story.

18.12 The Met Police have uploaded audio of Detective Inspector Kevin Hyland talking about the arrests in South London today:

17.39 Detective Inspector Kevin Hyland tells the BBC that interviews with the two suspects are going on now. Both are being held at a south London police station and their house was searched this morning. Interviews will continue into the evening.

17:24 More from Aneeta Prem of Freedom Charity, who's speaking to Sky News about the released captives:

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Three women 'held as slaves' in south London

Three "highly traumatised" women are alleged to have been held against their will for 30 years - with one born in captivity By Martin Evans, Crime Correspondent

9:28AM GMT 22 Nov 2013

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• South London slave investigation: live coverage
• The daring operation to free the slaves of Lambeth
• Desperate call for help after TV charity appeal
• Video: Charity head says London slave women rescue 'miraculous'

A woman who was born into captivity and allowed no contact with the outside world is one of three 'slaves’ who have been rescued after being kept against their will in a south London house for 30 years, the police revealed on Thursday.

A man and a woman, both aged 67, were arrested after officers from Scotland Yard were alerted to the plight of the three women last month.

The pair, who have not been named by police, were later “bailed until a date in January pending further enquiries”, Scotland Yard said in a statement in the early hours of Friday morning.

Detectives from the human trafficking unit said it was the worst case of modern slavery they had ever come across in Britain.

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The youngest of the alleged victims, who is now 30, is thought to have spent her entire life in servitude and is thought to have been born in captivity.

The woman, who police said had no normal contact with the outside world, was rescued alongside a 57-year-old Irish woman and a 69-year-old from Malaysia. Their alleged captors are not British, the police confirmed, but provided no further details about their nationality.

The three 'slaves’ were never allowed outside unaccompanied and spent the vast majority of their lives confined to the property in Lambeth, south London, described by police as an “ordinary house in an ordinary street”.

The women’s ordeal finally came to an end last month when the 57-year-old contacted a charity after watching a television programme about domestic slavery.

She told charity workers that she had been held against her will in a house in Lambeth, south London for more than 30 years.

Since their release the three women have thanked the founder of the charity which helped rescue them for "saving their lives".

Police were alerted and after using specially trained officers to interview the women over the telephone, two women escaped and met the authorities at an agreed location nearby on October 25. The third - the Malaysian woman - was later rescued from the house.

On Thursday after weeks of careful investigation police moved in and arrested two people, who were described as the “heads of the family”, suggesting a criminal network would be involved. The reason for the near month delay between rescuing the women and making the arrests was unclear.

The pair were questioned at a south London police station on Thursday, but it is not clear whether there will be further arrests in connection with the case.

Police are searching other possible linked addresses for bodies amid fears it is part of a wider abduction ring and that others may have been held but died in captivity, reports suggested.

Detective Inspector Kevin Hyland of the Met’s human trafficking unit said: “We’ve established that all three women were held in this situation for at least 30 years.

“Their lives were greatly controlled and for much of it they would be kept in the premises.”

Detective Inspector Kevin Hyland addresses the media outside New Scotland Yard

Det Insp Hyland said they were still working to establish if the 30-year-old woman had been born in the house but he said the indications were that she had spent her entire life there.

Asked if she had ever attended school he said: “The 30-year-old had no contact with the outside world that one would see as normal.”

Det Insp Hyland went on: “The human trafficking unit of the Metropolitan Police deals with many cases of servitude and forced labour. We’ve seen some cases where people have been held for up to 10 years but we’ve never seen anything of this magnitude before."

He added: “It’s part of our investigation - who had any freedom, what sort of freedom, under what conditions that freedom was allowed.”

Police are investigating the possibility that the victims may have been related in some way, but given their different nationalities that seems unlikely.

Police have also said there have been no allegations made of sexual abuse made by the victims.

Freedom, a charity which offers advice and support to victims of forced marriages, contacted police after one of the women got in touch last month.

Aneeta Prem, the founder of the charity, said the alleged victims were extremely vulnerable, but had been able to walk out of the house on their own where they were met by police.

She added: “I think it’s a real rarity, I certainly haven’t heard of anything like this before. I’ve heard of stories abroad but not in the centre of London.”

Talking on ITV's Daybreak this morning she added: "They're quite traumatised ... but they're very relieved to be out.

"When I met them, it was a very 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."

She said: "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. Bear in mind these ladies have left with absolutely nothing at all. The charity is going to have to try and help and support them through this difficulty journey."

The women told her that they felt that they could trust her as they had seen her on TV throughout the summer as she campaigned against forced marraiges and young girls going missing.

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."

The case has led to comparisons with that of Josef Fritzl, the Austrian who kept his daughter confined to the cellar of his home for 24 years.

In May this year three women were freed from a house in Cleveland, Ohio after being kidnapped and held against their will for more than a decade.

The Home Secretary, Theresa May, expressed her shock at the case.

A spokesman said: “The home secretary is shocked by this appalling case and 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.”

Metropolitan Police Commissioner Sir Bernard Hogan-Howe said: “If the allegations are true that someone’s been kept against their will or been abused for 30 years that’s a horrendous thing and we’re all shocked by that.”

Frank Field MP, chairman of the modern slavery bill evidence review and vice-chairman of the human trafficking foundation, described the victims as “brave”.

He said: “People need to understand that these aren’t one-off cases - modern slavery is alive and well in Britain, and needs to be stopped.

“We need police forces to be working much more closely with local non-government organisations, such as Freedom Charity, to help raise awareness and spot the signs of this evil, which is taking place right under our noses. It was incredibly brave for one of the victims to call for help - much more needs to be done to help victims come forward.”

Earlier this year the Forced Marriage Unit (FMU) - a joint operation by the Home Office and the Foreign and Commonwealth Office - revealed it helped in 1,485 cases of possible forced marriage in 2012, involving 60 countries across Europe, Asia, the Middle East, Africa and North America.

The statistics for last year show that of the 744 cases where the age was known, more than 600 involved people under the age of 26.

 CrimeNews »UK News »Law and Order »Mobile »Martin Evans »

In politics

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Female serial killer Joanna Dennehy admits three murders: 'I've pleaded guilty and that's that'

Serial killer: Joanna Dennehy

The Old Bailey was stunned into silence yesterday as Joanna Dennehy issued her shock guilty plea.

The 31-year-old had been expected to deny the brutal knife murders of three men and dumping their bodies in ditches before being formally sent for trial.

Instead she shocked the court, including her own defence team, by confessing to the serial killings

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Attacker who left victim 'looking like the Elephant Man' jailed for three years

Jailed: Billy Swindells

A Merseyside man wept as he was jailed for a vicious attack which a court was told left his victim looking like the Elephant Man.

Billy Swindells launched the attack thinking his victim had assaulted him two weeks earlier - but he got the wrong man.

A court heard he had never been in trouble before, and had acted out of character while drunk.

Swindells, 20, came up behind Robert Hignett and Saul Fowles as they were walking near Wigan Road, Ormskirk, on their way to a party in the early hours of March 13, the Liverpool Echo reports.

Paul Becker, prosecuting, said Swindells started kicking Mr Fowles and threw him to the ground and repeatedly kicked him to the head.

When arrested Swindells said he had been out drinking and was drunk when he saw the two men and believed they had

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Female serial killer admits three murders

(Clockwise from top left) Serial killer Joanna Dennehy, victims John Chapman, Lukasz Slaboszewski and Kevin Lee  Photo: SWNS/Newsteam By Hayley Dixon

11:55AM GMT 18 Nov 2013

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A female serial killer has admitted murdering three men before dumping their bodies in ditches.

Joanna Dennehy admitted killing Kevin Lee, 48, Lukasz Slaboszewski, 31, and John Chapman, 56, who were found with multiple stab wounds between March and April this year.

Mr Lee's body was discovered dumped in a ditch in Newborough, Cambridgeshire, on March 30, and her other two victims were found a short distance away at Thorney Dyke.

Dennehy, 30, also admitted the attempted murders of two other men, John Rogers and Robin Bereza.

The pleas appeared to take her defence barrister Nigel Lickley QC by surprise.

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Mr Lickley said: "The course is not one I had anticipated. We ask for more time given what has just occurred."

Dennehy, who sat in the dock of the court, said she did not want to talk to anyone and added: "I have pleaded guilty and that's it."

She also pleaded guilty to three counts of preventing the lawful burial of all three murder victims.

Her partner, 7ft 3inches tall Gary Stretch, 47, denied the two attempted murders and helping Dennehy to dump the bodies.

Gary Stretch and Joanna Dennehy

Leslie Layton, 47, and Robert Moore, 55, have previously denied helping to cover up the alleged murders and harbouring Stretch and Dennehy when they were wanted by police. Their trial is due in January.

Property developer Mr Lee was discovered on the morning of March 30 in a ditch by the A16 at Newborough.

A post-mortem examination later showed the 48-year-old died as a result of stab wounds to the chest.

Four days later on April 3 police were called to Fenland field in Thorney, near Peterborough, after a member of the public stumbled across the bodies of Lukasz Slaboszewski and John Chapman.

Mr Slaboszewski had been stabbed in the heart. John Chapman was stabbed in the neck and chest.

It is said Mr Slaboszewski was murdered between March 19 and 29, while both Mr Chapman and Mr Lee were allegedly killed on March 29.

The two attempted murders were said to have happened on April 2.

Dennehy objected to her lawyers being given more time to check her guilty pleas, saying: "I'm not coming back down here again just to say the same stuff. It's a long way to come to say the same thing I have just said.'

Mr Justice Sweeney noted: "She has pleaded guilty to a large number of counts, clearly intentionally, and in the circumstances if there is to be any application for a change than I will consider it but otherwise she has pleaded guilty."

The judge ordered that Dennehy's defence team notify the court by Monday if there is to be any application to vacate the pleas entered.

All defendants are in custody.

 CrimeNews »UK News »Hayley Dixon »

In politics

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Female serial killer admits murdering three men before dumping their bodies in ditches

By Alice Philipson

9:00PM GMT 18 Nov 2013

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A female serial killer has pleaded guilty to murdering three men before dumping their bodies in ditches.

Joanna Dennehy stabbed her landlord Kevin Lee, 48, and housemates Lukasz Slaboszewski, 31, and John Chapman, 56, within days of each other.

The body of Mr Lee, who was a married father, was found stabbed to death in a roadside ditch in March. Four days later, a farmer found the corpses of the two other men in a remote dyke five miles away.

A post mortem found Mr Slaboszewski, who was unemployed, had been stabbed in the heart.

Dennehy, 30, from Peterborough, appeared in the dock in a white shirt with a star tattooed under her right eye. She stood alongside her boyfriend Gary Richards, who is 7ft 3in tall, and also known as Gary Stretch.

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Bodies In Ditches: Woman Admits Three Murders

A woman pleads guilty to murdering three men whose bodies were found with multiple stab wounds in ditches in Cambridgeshire. 11:52am UK, Monday 18 November 2013

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Clyde tug firm fined £1.7 million over deaths of three crewmen

Comments

The Flying Phantom capsized in freezing fog a week before Christmas in December 2007 while towing a cargo vessel on the river near Glasgow.

The company Svitzer Marine Ltd pleaded guilty last month to a series of health and safety breaches.

These included failing to put in place a safe operating procedure following the grounding of the Flying Phantom in foggy conditions in a previous incident in 2000.

The most recent accident happened when the tug ran aground in the darkness and fog, and was overtaken and pulled over by the Red Jasmine, the cargo ship it was towing.

The judge Lord Turnbull said at the High Court in Edinburgh that the case was marked by Svitzer's "enduring failure to take proper account of the level of risk of towing in reduced visibility, as reported by the company's own experts following an investigation into an incident on the Clyde seven years previously”.

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On December 29, 2000, the Greenock-based tug suffered pounds150,000-worth of damage when it was hit by the carrier it was towing.

Managers identified a high risk of "girting", or the tug being overtaken by the vessel being towed, while operating on a narrow stretch of water in foggy conditions.

But despite their findings, Svitzer did not amend its operation manual or introduce procedures to avert the risk, said Lord Turnbull.

He added that the men who died had loving families that had to endure the grief of their loss for the past six years, and acknowledged that although the financial penalty was substantial it "might seem entirely inadequate".

Lord Turnbull also said he found it difficult to understand why proceedings had taken so long to come to court, but said Svitzer had complied with prosecutors throughout the process and he accepted that the company was "genuinely remorseful".

The captain, Stephen Humphreys, 33, from Greenock, Eric Blackley, 57, from Gourock and Bob Cameron, 65, from Houston, Renfrewshire, died when the tug sank. A fourth man, Brian Aitchison, 37, from Coldingham in the Borders, was rescued after clinging to a buoy.

Helen Humphreys, the captain’s wife, welcomed the sentence and the guilty plea by the company.

However, Andrew Henderson, a lawyer acting for the families, criticised the fact that no FAI had been held, adding: “Although the conclusion of criminal action against Switzer is welcome, it is extremely worrying that almost six years on from the tragic deaths of three men in the course of their employment there has been no fatal accident inquiry held into those deaths.”

Pat Rafferty, Scottish secretary of the Unite union said it was a scandal that the victims' families had to wait six years for the sentence and it was “even more galling that no individual will be held responsible for Svitzer's negligence”.

 ScotlandNews »UK News »Auslan Cramb »Crime »

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