Four Arrested After 'Slaves' Rescued From British Caravan Site

Two men and two women are being held in police custody after eight “virtual slaves” were rescued during a raid on a Bedfordshire caravan site on Sunday, police have said.

The alleged victims - eight males aged between 17 and 46 - were found at the Green Acres site near Leighton Buzzard following a dawn raid.

Some of the victims had been held there for "many years", according to Chief Inspector Tania Coulson of Bedfordshire Police. A Bedfordshire police spokesman told Newsweek that at least two of the men were Eastern European, although they have yet to confirm how the men came to be targeted. All were said to be in a "poor state of physical health", and some are receiving medical and psychological treatment at an undisclosed reception centre.

In 2011, Bedfordshire police rescued 24 men from the same caravan site under Operation Netwing, a campaign aimed at clamping down on forced labour. James, Josie, Patrick and Tommy Connors, members of the same traveller family, were later found guilty of keeping workers in a state of servitude and forcing them to perform unpaid work. They are currently serving a combined total of 27 years in jail.

The police spokesperson said there was no obvious family connection, as those arrested had different surnames, but confirmed that the case was comparable to Operation Netwing, though on a smaller scale. The men were “similarly vulnerable” to those rescued from the site in 2011, he said.

The Connors family monitored soup kitchens, night shelters, job centres and benefit offices in search of vulnerable men, who were lured to Green Acres with the promise of food, shelter and paid work, but ultimately made to perform manual labour for negligible pay, living in conditions that were likened to concentration camps.

Some 65 officers, including a firearms and dog unit, took part in yesterday’s raid. Bedfordshire Police were assisted by officers from the National Crime Agency’s Human Trafficking Centre as well as partners from Central Bedfordshire Council, the Salvation Army and the Red Cross. There were two further arrests today, with one man arrested for obstructing a police officer and another for a breach of the peace.

The latest arrests come after a number of government initiatives to prioritise the issues of human trafficking and forced labour in Britain. Home Secretary Theresa May published a  Modern Slavery Bill earlier this year, which laid out provisions for dealing with traffickers that could see them jailed for life.

Karen Bradley, the Minister for Modern Slavery and Organised Crime, told the London Evening Standard in June that the Modern Slavery Bill would help thousands of people in London alone.