Four Irish travellers from the one family are awaiting sentence in England after they were found guilty of keeping homeless men in slavery.
Luton’s Crown Court found the three men and one woman guilty on multiple charges of keeping homeless men in servitude, making them do forced labour, and other abuses.
The jury failed to reach agreement on another 30 charges against the members of the Connors family and another trial may follow.
The Irish Times reports that Tommy Connors Snr was found guilty of one count of servitude, one of forced labour, and one of causing actual bodily harm.
His son Patrick, daughter Josie, and her husband James John Connors were also convicted of holding a person in servitude and other offences.
England’s Crown Prosecution Service may now seek to again prosecute the charges on which the jury could not agree.
One of the homeless men, who cannot be named, told the court how he was recruited by James John Connors at a petrol station when he was ‘depressed and contemplating suicide’.
The man told the court that he could have left the Connors’ caravan site near Leighton Buzzard in Bedfordshire but said he was scared of James John Connors.
He said in evidence: “Seven years of abuse, starvation and torture. There was no respect. They treated me like a slave, and that’s putting it mildly.”
The court also heard that one worker was beaten after he had broken a Waterford Crystal vase worth $4,000 while he cleaned James John’s caravan.
One victim, held in servitude by Tommy Connors Snr and his son, Patrick, told the court: “You couldn’t fight them all. They would say, ‘I’ll find you, no matter where you are, we’ll get you’.”
The victims told how they were barred from using toilets and showers at the caravan park and were instead taken irregularly to a local leisure centre for a shower.
In evidence, James John Connors said: “The workers’ living conditions were down to themselves, they had lived in cardboard boxes when on the streets.”
A police inquiry was only launched in March 2011 after the introduction of legislation a year earlier which made servitude a crime under British law.
Conspiracy to hold someone in servitude can bring a jail sentence of up to 14 years.
Here’s ITV’s report from September 2011 when the men were freed:
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Switch to the desktop site to post a comment.Curitiba | Jul 13, 2012, 01:51 PM EDT
Hmmm, Ciara, sounds like you being increasingly drawn towards the dark side of the force. Remember, once you embrace the dark side, forever will it control your destiny...
Curitiba | Jul 13, 2012, 01:42 PM EDT
YoungPike: ha, ha, ha!
ciaradexy | Jul 13, 2012, 12:10 PM EDT
Curitiba, Im exactly like that.
ciaradexy | Jul 13, 2012, 12:09 PM EDT
I have no idea why theyre called Travellers as they dont travel!
YoungPike | Jul 13, 2012, 07:27 AM EDT
Curitiba: In my experience the English don't think we're ALL travellers. They're open-minded enough to realise that we're also brawlers, drunkards, fiddlers and terrorists!
IrelandNorth | Jul 13, 2012, 06:20 AM EDT
Apparently 'Travellers' is the term they themselves are most comfortable with. They used to be know as itinerants, (as well as the two other less than complimentary terms mentioned). Although they used to work with tin, they say they never dealth with the carcasses of dead animals. I suspect this case is pay back for the Dale Farm debacle. Alas, since they're less nomadic than they used to be, (courtesy of the positive discrimination of Local Authority housing preferential policy), it's doubtful if the term traveller holds anymore. And since most of these Connor's were born in England, it's doubtful if they can be considered Irish. Despite being direct descendants of evicted tenant farmers of rackrenting English landlords over time, it's not ethnicist to say that they are deeply dysfunctional people who do victimhood and dependency very convincingly. Wherever the go, trouble inevitably follows. There are plenty of islands off the coast of both Ireland and Britain. Why can't be settled there by the repective authorities, instead of inflicting them upon inarticulate local authority working class tenants whose lives are made a misery by their lifestyle of choice - drinking, whoring and fighting.
Scotchtommy | Jul 13, 2012, 02:25 AM EDT
Won't be long before we get posts denouncing the persecution of these fine Irish folk by the murderous prejudiced British justice system.I say -"Free the Luton Four"
cillowen | Jul 12, 2012, 05:22 PM EDT
comment
Curitiba | Jul 12, 2012, 04:22 PM EDT
I've got English friends too Ciara. Very nice people, their English ancestors go back hundreds of years. Bit of a racist rant you're having about minority folk there, never knew you were like that, I'm shocked!
ciaradexy | Jul 12, 2012, 04:10 PM EDT
Curitiba, funny that because none of my English friends think like that. Maybe its just because you keep telling your mates that youre irish. they are probably so sick of hearing that so they think youre some gypo migrants.
Curitiba | Jul 12, 2012, 03:34 PM EDT
Totally embarrassing. When English people think of Irish people these days, they automatically assume we are all travellers. Then this sort of thing happens and they simply assume we are all like that. That ridiculous TV programme "Big Fat Gypsy Weddings" doesn't help either.
Murph46 | Jul 12, 2012, 02:37 PM EDT
So I am right Sparklet-just trying to learn your PC!
Sparklet | Jul 12, 2012, 12:06 PM EDT
Ooh Murph..you'd get a rap on the knuckles for using that term in the UK as Travellers have been granted the status of an ethnic group, and therefore racist charges can be brought against anyone who contravenes the Race Relations Act.
Murph46 | Jul 12, 2012, 09:33 AM EDT
Is Travelers the politically correct term for tinkers or knackers?