Edgaras and Edvinas Subatkis spent most of their time walking. If it rained they would spend a few hours in the library. During the day, they slept on benches or under bridges, but at night they kept walking.

The two Lithuanian brothers thought their nightmare had come to an end when they were rescued by the authorities from forced labour in English food factories. But since then they endured a period of five months living on the streets of a northern city while waiting to be key witnesses in the eventual successful prosecution of their traffickers.

“We were meeting people who had lived on the streets for five, 10 years, people drinking; we were frightened that would happen to us,” said Edgaras.

The twins, now 29, were lured to the UK from Lithuania in 2013 on the promise of good jobs, housing and all their essentials being provided. They agreed to pay an £800 fee for transport and employment, even though it is illegal to charge workers for finding work in the UK.

After their rescue the brothers were passed to the UK’s National Referral Mechanism for victims of slavery, which is meant to provide victims with support. But lawyers for the pair say that government changes in 2014 restricting EU migrants’ access to benefits have left them and other victims without the long-term help they need once the initial referral period ends.

They have pursued a judicial review case in the high court regarding the lack of support. A ruling on what the men are entitled to is due at the end of April. Their case could set a precedent for other victims of trafficking, according to their lawyer.



Sitting in the emergency housing provided while they await the result of the judicial review, in a room almost completely bare, they are full of smiles and restless energy.

“We are hopeful now but tired of waiting,” Edgaras explained. The identical twins’ gestures unconsciously mirror each other and they seem much younger than their years. Asked if they have any family who might help them now, they shrug, and point at each other. “We are 100% family, just two of us,” they say in unison.

Falling between the gaps is not a new experience for the Subatkis twins. They were taken in to care in Lithuania at the age of seven when both their parents became alcoholic, and spend much of their childhood in an institution.

Although keen to describe their experience at the hands of the traffickers, they appear unable to express any feelings about it, as though a life in institutional care had given them no permission to have feelings.

They now have a roof over their heads, but are concerned that might not last. “We are worried that we might end up back on the streets again. It was like being a dog on the street,” said Edgaras.

The brothers originally came to the UK on the promise of well-paid jobs and accommodation offered by Lithuanian contacts. They were told not to bring any possessions or spare clothes since everything would be provided. Instead they were taken on arrival to a gang house in Great Yarmouth where there were four men to a room with mattresses on the floor.

The Lithuanian gangmasters who trafficked them, Linus Ratautas and Konstantin Sasmurin, controlled their lives, subjecting them to what the judge described as cruel and degrading treatment, and threatened to kill them if they complained. They took the twins to register with agencies inside two food factories, one a large pea processing plant in Lowestoft, the other the 2 Sisters Food Group chicken processing factory in Flixton, which supplies many of the leading supermarkets.

The twins spoke no English and did not understand that the gangmasters were diverting their wages to one of their own bank accounts.

They were given just £20 over the four-month period they worked, along with a small amount of food each week: bread, margarine, onions, ketchup, and occasionally a little mince. They went hungry most of the time and when the authorities stepped in they were still wearing the clothes in which they had arrived in the UK.

The brothers’ case is part of a wider problem. There were 640 confirmed victims of trafficking to the UK from other EU countries in 2015, with the great majority of them being trafficked from Eastern Europe for labour exploitation.

Kate Roberts, head of the Human Trafficking Foundation, said there was an urgent need to tackle the lack support for victims of trafficking after the initial 45-day identification process. “People become trafficked because they have some vulnerability, which might be a family disaster, a traumatic childhood or debt. Clearly no one’s situation is fully resolved in the 45 days, yet for many there is no statutory provision beyond that.”

About a year after they had been rescued, the Subatkis brothers were asked to leave their accommodation at short notice when it became clear they were unlikely to meet new benefit criteria. That is what left them homeless on the streets (the Guardian is not revealing their location because the brothers believe they are at risk of violent reprisals from people linked to their traffickers).

Although their traffickers, Ratautas and Sasmurin, were convicted and sentenced at King’s Lynn crown court in January to three and a half years in prison, a third man, allegedly also involved in luring them to the UK, broke his bail terms and is believed to have escaped back to Lithuania.

All the companies involved in the Subatkis case say they have strong anti-slavery policies in place and 2 Sisters says it acted quickly once the case was brought to their attention.

The agencies that recruited them and both the pea and chicken factories said they had rigorous procedures to guard against trafficking and exploitation and that these had been updated since the Subatkis’s case.

Today the twins have been rescued again and are looking for work. But their fridge is still empty except for a tub of margarine, a half-used jar of tomato sauce, a couple of pieces of meat, and a small bottle of cola. They have a kettle but no pots to cook in and nothing to clean the flat with.

Their lost wages have not been recovered and they are currently receiving £35 a week each from the council. They smoke a little, which they know is unhealthy, but it deadens the appetite.

Ugo Hayter, the solicitor at Leigh Day who represents the men in the judicial review, said that without taking legal action they would still be on the streets. She says the outcome could set a precedent for scores of other cases of modern slavery in future: “This is an extremely important case, the outcome of which will impact on hundreds of vulnerable victims of trafficking nationally.”