"Brainwashing ordeal of the London slave women kept in 'invisible handcuffs' for more than 30 years
The couple suspected of keeping three women as slaves for 30 years used cult-like techniques to brainwash their victims, it was claimed today.
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, both foreign, 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.
Scotland Yard Commander Steve 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. They were released on bail on conditions that include a stipulation they are not permitted to return to their home in the borough of Lambeth, South East London, from where the victims were rescued from last month. The police search of the address, believed to be in Brixton, took 12 hours. Officers seized 55 bags of evidence containing more than 2,500 exhibits.
The captives – a 30-year-old British woman, a 57-year-old Irish woman and a 69-year-old Malaysian woman – are 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. 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.
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.’
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."
www.dailymail.co.uk/news/article-2511842/London-slave-house-suspects-looked-like-normal-family-arrested-1970s.html