Shocking ordeal of London slaves revealed: Malaysian woman, 69, 'had stroke but was denied medical help' and captives only saw daylight to hang out washing or help captors with shopping

Malaysian woman, 69, Irish woman, 57, and British woman, 30, were 'slaves'

Trio only allowed out to hang the washing or visit the shop if supervised



Youngest victim had allegedly been held there from childhood in Lambeth



Two suspects, a couple, both 67, were arrested and bailed last night



Discovery made after Irish victim called charity and said she was trapped

It is understood she said a 'friend' had a stroke and was denied medical help



Freedom Charity told police who traced the call to an 'ordinary house'



Founder Aneeta Prem says the women suffered physical and mental abuse

'E veryone was incredibly emotional to know we had helped to rescue three ladies who had been held in such horrific conditions ', she said

David Cameron said today he regarded the case as 'utterly appalling'



The Lambeth slaves allegedly held captive for 30 years may only have had rare glimpses of daylight when they were allowed to hang out the washing or go shopping accompanied by their captors.

The three women - including a British 30-year-old never allowed to step into the outside world - were held in 'horrific conditions', the charity who helped free them said today.

Their decades of forced servitude ended last month when one of the victims apparently made a 'call for help' when her 'friend' - another victim - was refused medical treatment after having a stroke.

The Irishwoman of 57, who made the call, fled with the unwell 69-year-old Malaysian and the youngest victim, who were all held in servitude by a non-British couple in their 60s for three decades.

David Cameron's official spokesman said today the Prime Minister regarded the case as 'utterly appalling'.

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Rescue: Detective Inspector Kevin Hyland, from the Met's human trafficking unit revealed three women were rescued after at least 30 years as slaves, with the youngest having never seen the outside world

A picture of life inside their Lambeth prison has been slowly emerging, where the women were allegedly kept as servants, carrying out everyday tasks around the home.

Although they had their own rooms, it is understood they were never allowed out unsupervised.

Discovery: Three female slaves, one held for more than 30 years, have been discovered in London after one contacted a charity run by Aneeta Prem (pictured) They were released in October when one of the women called Freedom Charity after seeing a documentary about forced marriage on television. The Independent said she spoke of a 'friend' being unwell, but did not reveal that she and the two others were being held captive. Apparently in an 'emotional state', she then said her 'friend' had suffered a stroke but was not allowed medical help, and added that the other 'friend', presumably the girl held in captivity all her life had never been to school.

The woman did not give her name or address, but it is believed the police were then contacted, who traced the phone and found the 'ordinary house' in south London, which the women left on October 25. Aneeta Prem, founder of Freedom Charity, which was called by one of the women, today spoke of their release and said: 'When we got the message they were outside the front door, the whole call centre erupted in cheers and there were tears, and everyone was incredibly emotional to know we had helped to rescue three ladies who had been held in such horrific conditions. '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.' The two people, a non-British couple, both 67, were held by police at a south London station last night have been released on bail, and it is unclear if they are back at their home.

'There are fears this is part of a wider abduction ring. There is an ongoing search of possible linked addresses, and for any bodies that might be concealed,' a police source said. A British woman was among three ‘deeply traumatised’ women who were rescued from the ‘ordinary’ house by police.

Location: The three women were discovered in a house in the London borough of Lambeth, which runs to Waterloo, Stockwell, Brixton, Vauxhall, Streatham and Clapham areas of south London

Police said the three women were unrelated to each other, but it was unclear if the youngest victim is related to their captors

Detectives said they had never seen a case like it.

Yesterday Scotland Yard swooped on the house in Lambeth, south London, and arrested a couple, both aged 67, on suspicion of enslaving the three women.

Breakthrough: Vineeta Thornhill, CEO at Freedom Charity, answered the initial phone call from the victim

The couple were questioned on suspicion of holding the women against their will for more than 30 years.

Detective Inspector Kevin Hyland, from the Metropolitan Police’s Human Trafficking Unit, said: ‘This is an extraordinary case.



‘We don’t know whether the 30-year-old was born in the house, but she has spent her whole life, we believe, in this servitude or forced labour.

‘We have had cases where people have been held for up to 10 years, but three decades is unseen before in the United Kingdom.’



Police said the three women were unrelated to each other, but it was unclear if the youngest victim is related to their captors.

They were said to have found the courage to act after watching an ITV Exposure documentary about forced marriages on October 9, which featured an organisation called Freedom Charity, prompting the Irishwoman to call its helpline.

The charity’s founder, Aneeta Prem, said: ‘They were absolutely terrified by the people they were held by.



‘They felt they were in massive danger, but they made a decision to make that phone call. It was very difficult for them.

‘The women are now in a place of safety. Hopefully they will have happy fulfilled lives if they ever get over the trauma.’

The tense operation to rescue the women took place on October 25, but was only revealed yesterday when the arrests happened.

Miss Prem said: ‘It was planned that they would be able to walk out of the property.



'The police were on standby. They walked out and we were waiting for them.’

The exact location of the house in Lambeth has not been revealed, but Miss Prem said: ‘I don’t believe the neighbours knew anything about it at all.



‘It was an ordinary house in an ordinary street that wouldn’t raise concerns with anybody else.’

She said the women did have their own rooms in the house, but rarely went out and if they did, were always escorted.

It is believed another factor in their decision to break free was realising the elderly couple had become more frail, and the women had turned into their carers.

The victims are so traumatised that police have been unable to interview them fully, and are still unsure of key details of the abuse.

Shocking discovery: Scotland Yard said that one of the victims called a charity to say she was in captivity for thirty years and they then helped rescue her and two others

Q&A: WHAT THE POLICE KNOW ABOUT THE MYSTERY 'SLAVES'

Who are the victims: A 69-year-old Malaysian woman, a 57-year-old Irish woman and a 30-year-old British woman. Who has been arrested: A non-British couple, both 67 Where were the arrests made: In Lambeth, south London

Are the victims related? Police say they do not believe them to be.

Are they in police custody? Scotland Yard say they are in another place of safety. 'They are extremely traumatised which explains the discrepancy between with the Freedom Charity were contacted and the arrests were made. We continue to work closely with the victims to gather further information,' a spokesman said.

Was the youngest victim born in the house in Lambeth? 'We are not sure where she was born but she appears to have been in servitude for her entire life,' the spokesman said.

Have you dealt with similar cases before? 'The Met's unit has dealt with cases of people held in servitude against their will for around 10 years. This is the first time we have come across people who have been held for such a considerable length of time,' the spokesman said.

Has the youngest victim had contact with the outside world? The Met said: 'We believe that she, and the others, had limited freedom. We will continue to speak to the victims to ascertain what this ascertained'

Chief Inspector Hyland said: ‘Their life was greatly controlled and for much of it they would have been kept in the premises.

‘We don’t know whether the 30-year-old was born in the house but the 30-year-old has spent her whole life, we believe, in servitude.

‘It is fair to suggest the 30-year-old had no contact with the outside world that we would see as normal.

‘The fact is she has spent her entire life in the control of this criminal network. We can’t say at the moment whether she is the daughter of the man we’ve arrested.

'There’s no allegation of sexual abuse.’



A police spokesman added: ‘The women we’re dealing with are deeply, deeply traumatised.



‘As a consequence of that the information from them is coming out very slowly, which is one of the reasons for the delay between the time that we rescued them and the actual arrests yesterdday.’



The couple – described as the ‘heads of the family’ – were being questioned at a south London police station last night.



Both are understood to be non-British, but police would not comment on suggestions they were Irish.

They were arrested at 7.30am and police searched their house throughout the morning.



The fact the Met’s specialist human trafficking unit is involved suggests the Malaysian woman and possibly the Irishwoman might have been trafficked to the UK.

Police are examining previous abduction cases of people forced into servitude by Irish travellers.

Freedom Charity’s CEO, Vineeta Thornhill, who was in charge of speaking to the enslaved Irishwoman – who did not have an accent – said: ‘They were afraid for their lives, it’s fair to say.

‘It was harrowing. Our helpline has never heard of a case like this.’



Labour MP Frank Field, vice-chairman of the Human Trafficking Foundation, said: ‘The horrors of this case emphasise the crucial need for a new Modern Slavery Bill, along with immediate practical measures to tackle modern slavery, which we are increasingly aware is taking place through many insidious forms across the country.’

Borough: The three women were found in the London Borough of Lambeth, where officials at the town hall (pictured) said they were unable to comment on the case

I s slavery still alive in Britain? At least 4,700 people ar e being held in capti vity and it could be the 'tip of the iceberg '

Frightening: Experts identified 2,000 slaves in Britain in the past year alone - including 500 children

An estimated 4,700 people are being kept as slaves in Britain today with 400 cases reported in the past three months.

Experts say there are many victims - many of them children - whose plight is completely hidden from view.

The Serious Organised Crime Agency (SOAC) said they identified around 2,000 victims in the UK this year and one in four were children.

Victims came from more than 50 countries, they said.



The Home Secretary's special envoy for human trafficking, Anthony Steen said: ;Neighbours all over the country aren't aware of the identifying issues of modern-day slavery. This is just the tip of the iceberg'.



Cases of slavery, human trafficking and domestic servitude are on the increase in Britain, a police chief warned today.

Shaun Sawyer, the chief constable of Devon and Cornwall Police who is the national policing lead on migration, said it was 'unacceptable' that the industry had been allowed grow.



He said: 'We must be very ruthless and clear with traffickers that the UK is not a place to operate.

'A slave is a slave is a slave. Whether it's trafficking, forced labour or domestic servitude, you're controlling a human being as a commodity.



'There's a growth in this area in the UK which is unacceptable. There is a slow build of evidence.'



He said a solution needed to started 'as a policy' that created ‘an environment in the UK to make it unacceptable to deal with a person as a commodity.'



He admitted that gathering community intelligence is 'really hard to do', but added: 'That doesn't mean you don't do it.'



Andrew Wallis, the head of anti-human trafficking charity Unseen, said the allegations that three women had been held as slaves in a London house was 'indicative of a growing problem in the UK and around the globe.'



He added: 'It's an industry. It's an illicit trade with low risk of being caught and very high return, with a human being turned into a commodity to be bought and sold and exploited.'



Hard life: In a case that shocked Britain, a father and son were jailed last year after they forced destitute men into servitude and live in this horse box on a travellers site in Leighton Buzzard Slavery was officially abolished in the British Empire in the 1830s. But the revelation that three women had only recently been freed from three decades of servitude underlines how the problem remains in the 21st century, despite national and international laws and conventions. But recent court cases have demonstrated that slavery and servitude still exist in many forms such as trafficking, forced labour and through the exploitation of migrant workers - 175 years after it was outlawed Warning: Government advisor Anthony Steen says the thousands of slaves in Britain could be the 'tip of the iceberg' I n May, a father and son were jailed after they forced destitute men into servitude. Tommy Connors Senior, 53, was jailed for eight years and his son Patrick, 21, for five years at Luton Crown Court. The pair, from the Greenacres site in Little Billington, Leighton Buzzard, had been convicted last July of servitude, compulsory labour and assault charges after a trial at the same court. Five members of the same traveller family who lived a luxurious lifestyle at the expense of vulnerable men forced to work for a pittance were all jailed in December last year. William Connors, 52, his wife Mary, 48, the couple's sons, John, 29, and James, 20, and son-in-law Miles Connors, 24, were all convicted of conspiracy to require a person to perform forced or compulsory labour between April 2010 and March 2011 following a three-month trial at Bristol Crown Court In March 2010, two Hungarian nationals who trafficked young women into Britain and forced them to work in north London as sex slaves were each jailed for eight years. Joszef Budai, 24, and Andrea Novak, 20, were sentenced at Croydon Crown Court after being convicted of a string of trafficking and prostitution offences. Delivering his sentence, his Honour Judge Simon Pratt described the case as 'the closest to human slavery as you could possibly get'.

The previous year, a court heard how an African woman was forced to work for up to 18 hours a day in what was described as the first case of 'modern-day slavery' to come before a court.

Mwanahamisi Mruke was trafficked into Britain from Tanzania and then made to sleep on a mattress on the kitchen floor of the north-west London home belonging to Saeeda Khan during her three-year ordeal.

She was initially given just £10 a month to complete all of her chores, but after a year payments ceased. Khan, a 68-year-old widow, was guilty of 'the most appalling greed', a judge said after a jury unanimously convicted her of trafficking a person into the UK for exploitation. She was handed a suspended prison term.

The documentary which sparked victim's cry for help: Call to charity made in same month that force marriage programme shown on ITV

The phone call to Freedom Charity by one of the alleged victim's, reporting that she had been held against her will, came in October, the same month that a television documentary aired on forced marriage.

ITV documentary series Exposure, showed clerics at 18 UK mosques agreeing to marry off a girl of 14 in an Islamic ceremony.

Undercover reporters filmed the documentary, entitled Forced to Marry, which was broadcast on October 9, and involved two reporters posing as the mother and brother of a 14-year-old girl to be married to an older man.

Exposure: One of the undercover reporters posed as the mother of a 14-year-old and asked clerics if they would perform a marriage ceremony for her daughter

The journalists contacted 56 of mosques around the UK asking if they would perform the marriage of a 14-year-old girl.

Around two thirds of those contacted refused to perform am Islamic marriage, known as a nikah, making it clear they were disgusted at the request.

However, 18 of the respondents agreed, with one Iman saying ‘that’s not going to be a problem’.

Another cleric, Shams-ul-Huda Khan Misbahi, who preaches in Heckmondwike near Leeds, was shown assuring the reporters that the marriage would be ‘real’. Despite being told that the girl had only met her future husband once, the cleric condoned making her move in with the man against her wishes, claiming ‘everything is jaiz’, meaning lawful.

Campaigners claim thousands of girls are forced into the illegal ceremonies every year, in a boom fuelled by the ‘moral blindness of cultural sensitivity’.

Such weddings are not recognised by UK law.

Marriages can only be officially registered if both parties are over 16, which is also the age of sexual consent.

Agreed: Khan Misbahi, preacher at Jamia Masjid Kanzul Imam Mosque near Leeds agreed to marry the pair

However, under Islamic or sharia law, a girl can get married as soon as she reaches puberty.

Official figured suggest that the vast majority of forced marriages of British children happen abroad, although the Exposure investigation revealed that girls as young as 10 are being forced into marriage in this country.



Around 400 schoolchildren, mainly girls from South Asian communities, are forced into marriage every year in the UK.

The programme was made with the support of Freedom Charity, and founder Anita Prem was interviewed about the show prior to its air date.

She said: ‘I think whoever is involved in this, you are talking about child abuse and exploitation and it is something we need to stop.

‘People are too culturally sensitive when dealing with this, they are worried about offending particular groups. We have to say it’s immoral and illegal and stamp it out.

‘I think what we are hearing about is the tip of the iceberg, it is a huge problem.’

Since 2008, courts in England, Wales and Northern Ireland have been able to issue civil orders to prevent forced marriage. Breaches can result in a two-year prison sentence for contempt of court.

Held against their will: The harrowing stories of people kept prisoner for decades by evil tormentors like Josef Fritzl and Ariel Castro



Josef Fritzl, Ariel Castro and Phillip Garrido are three of the world's most notorious kidnappers who have held their victims captive for decades.



In each case the women held were rescued and the stories generated headlines around the world.



In Britain businessman Ilyas Ashar, 84, and his wife Tallat, 68, were last month jailed for holding a deaf and mute child from Pakistan in captivity in their cellar.



Ashar sexually abused and beat the youngster who he brought to Salford, Greater Manchester, from Pakistan in June 2000 when she was aged just 10.



Ilyas Ashar (left) and his wife Tallat Ashar (right) were jailed for holding a Pakistani girl trafficked to the UK when she was aged just 10 in captivity for 13 years



She was also used to steal more than £30,000 in benefits.



The girl never went to school in Pakistan or Britain, but was taught by the Ashars to sign her name to claim benefits.



Ashar would routinely rape the girl in the cellar and other houses the family owned - though she would try to fight him off.



He was jailed for 13 years, while his wife was given five years in prison.



The most notorious kidnapper was Austrian father Josef Fritzl who was arrested five years ago after holding his daughter Elisabeth as a sex slave in a concealed basement for 24 years.



Elisabeth was repeatedly raped by her father and gave birth to seven of his children while in captivity.



Fritzl, now 78, kept three of them with him and his wife Rosemarie, who was oblivious to what lay beneath her home.



She thought the three children had been abandoned by Elisabeth after Fritzl convinced her that their daughter had ran away and the evil rapist masqueraded as the children's grandfather.



Josef Fritzl, pictured left, imprisoned his daughter in a tiny cellar, pictured right, underneath their family home in Amstetten, Austria, for 24 years and had seven children with her. It has now been filled with cement



Captivity: Natascha Kampusch was rescued in 2006 after being held captive for eight years. It had long been assumed she was the victim of a paedophile who murdered her



It was the critical illness of Elisabeth's 19-year-old incest daughter Kerstin in April 2008 which finally heralded the end of the secret cellar and its inhabitants.



Elisabeth Fritzl was rescued in Austria emerged just two years after Natascha Kampusch escaped after being held captive for eight years.



Miss Kampusch vanished on her way to school in Vienna in 1998 when she was ten.



Wolfgang Priklopil carved a secret, sound-proof cellar beneath his home in a suburb of the city in which to keep her captive for eight years.



Long considered the victim of a paedophile who had murdered her, Miss Kampusch finally escaped in August 2006.



In the US, Ariel Castro held three women in captivity for years before they got out in May this year.



Amanda Berry, Georgina DeJesus, and Michelle Knight, were rescued from the property in Cleveland, Ohio, after being kidnapped between 2002 and 2004.



They were found after Berry escaped from Castro’s house with her six-year-old daughter and contacted police. Castro later admitted 937 counts of rape, kidnap and aggravated murder for intentionally causing miscarriages. He was ordered to serve his whole life in prison in July with no chance of parole but hanged himself in his cell one month later.

At the time of their disappearances between 2002 and 2004 Amanda Berry was 16, Gina DeJesus was 14 and Miss Knight was 21.



Also in the US, Phillip Garrido held Jaycee Lee Dugard in captivity for 18 years before she was released in 2009.



Garrido and his wife nancy snatched 11-year-old Jaycee from a street in South Lake Tahoe in June 1991 while on her way to school.



She was held captive in a compound behind their home in Antioch, California house where Garrido repeatedly raped and drugged her. During her captivity, Dugard gave birth to two daughters fathered by Garrido.



Miss Dugard received $20million (£12.5million) from the state of California and Garrido was later sentenced to 431 years in prison while his wife Nancy was given 36 years.



In Missouri, US, a man was jailed in September for imprisoning a woman in his trailer for 20 years.



Edward Bagley, 46, and his wife Marilyn recruited the woman to live with them in ther rural trailer in 2002 and groomed her to become Bagley’s sex slave.

Monster: Ariel Castro, who had been jailed for life after kidnapping three women, was found dead in prison

