A family forced their vulnerable neighbours to work as slaves in their flat in the UK

News24xx.com -  A family who forced their vulnerable neighbours to work as slaves has facing jail. 

The victims Kate Dagley, 45, and her daughter Karen Jenkins, 27, were fed dry pasta and subjected to brutal beatings by Jean Kelly, 53, and her husband Michael, 43.

Ms Dagley was living with her daughter in a flat in Ferrers Close, Tile Hill, Coventry, when they were targeted by the family who lived on the same floor.

Both kept Ms Dagley as prisoner at their home, while Miss Jenkins was forced to work at a flat where Kelly’s daughter Anastasia Hitt, 25, lived with her partner Ian Healy, 29, and their baby.

Despite being confined to a wheelchair, Mrs Kelly as the family’s matriarch, regularly attacked the women with a baseball bat. The terrified mum and daughter forced to clean their flats, change a baby’s nappies and feed their dog. 

The victims were finally saved when police received an anonymous tip-off and they raided the flats where the women were being kept. 

A court heard that Miss Jenkins suffered extensive facial injuries, a fractured breastbone and a broken finger. Her mum was also found with two fractures to her back, two broken ribs, and bruises all over her face.

At the beginning of last year the family forced Miss Jenkins to live and work at Hitt’s flat at Vincent Wyles House, Wyken, Coventry. Miss Jenkins was kept prisoner for three weeks where she was forced to do the washing up and change a baby’s nappies. 

She was given uncooked pasta to eat, paid one cigarette a night for her work and ordered to sleep on the living room floor.

Ms Dagley told the court, "They would lock me up every night, and then let me out in the morning to help Jean in her flat, and then lock me up again at night."

Mrs Kelly was found guilty of two charges under the Modern Slavery Act after a trial at Warwick Crown Court on Monday. Mr Kelly, Hitt and Healy, all admitted assault and falsely imprisoning Ms Dagley. 

The defendants will be sentenced next month.

 

 

 

 

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