A man has been freed from a shed where he has been held for the last 40 years

News24xx.com - After has been held for the last 40 years, finally a man has been freed from a six-foot shed.  The man was found at a residential site near Carlisle, Cumbria, in a dawn raid yesterday morning.

Heis suspected that he was locked into the tiny room when he was just 18 years old in 1978. The man, who is now 58, is being cared for by officials from the Gangmasters and Labour Abuse Authority now. 

He is being looked after by specialist trauma officers who are carrying out medical examinations and assessing his mental health. When he was discovered he was said to have looked like a rabbit in the headlights because he was so startled to be freed.

He was just in the clothes and where he was sleeping in the shed there was just a soiled duvet on the floor.

Pictures from the scene show a filthy blanket on the floor next to a flat-screen TV and a garden chair. There is also a piece of raggedy old carpet and an electric heater that doesn’t work inside the green shed.

Martin Plimmer from the GLAA said, "The information that was given to us was that he had been kept in the shed for a period of 40 years. When we found him he was like a rabbit in headlights and very confused. There was no heating and it was very cold. It was conditions that no human being should live in."

Mr Plimmer said the man appeared to have been made to carry out unpaid work from the age of 16 or 17. He said it was unclear whether the man had ever tried to leave. Because he has been traumatised for such a length of time that it will be a slow process to win back his trust.

 

 

 

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