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

A rrested couple, both 67, from India and Tanzania 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 house

Bailed couple banned from returning home and had their passports seized

Freedom Charity say slavery-related calls are up five-fold this week



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 been released on bail to a date in January.



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Surrounded: Police officers stand outside a block of flats in Brixton, south London, where three women who were held as slaves were found

Inquiries: Police have been in the area - in the London borough of Lambeth - all day and remain there this evening, pictured





Scotland Yard Commander Steve Rodhouse said police were not releasing the exact address.

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. RELATED ARTICLES Previous

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Next Shocking ordeal of London slaves revealed: Malaysian woman,... More than 5,000 slaves believed to be held captive in... Share this article Share '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. 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 in London

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 charity

'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.'

Throughout today police officers were conducting house-to-house checks around the area in south London.



Photographs from the scene show that 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 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.



Neighbours spoke of their shock today as officers stood guard outside the block.

One local resident, Abdul Rogers, said many people living in the area did not speak to each other.



'It's really shocking,' he said.

'It's a kind of quiet area. The problem with this place is people don't speak to each other.



'I don't even know my next-door neighbour. If I met them on the street now I would not be able to tell it was my next-door neighbour, which is not good for community cohesion. Nobody speaks to each other.'

A woman, who gave her name only as Valerie, said the area was 'nice, quiet and calm'.



'People who live here respect where they live. There is still a little community.



'Seeing all this going on is quite surprising to me. It's shocking really.'



The police search of the address took 12 hours. Officers seized 55 bags of evidence containing more than 2,500 exhibits.

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.

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 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.



'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.'

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

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 who were part of a 'collective' which had 'shared ideals'

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 after 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 captives are now 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.

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.