Servitude trial: Four guilty

Four members of a traveller family have been found guilty of forcing destitute men into servitude.

Tommy Senior, James John, Patrick and Josie Connors were convicted of controlling, exploiting, verbally abusing and beating the men for financial gain at a caravan site near Leighton Buzzard in Bedfordshire.

During the trial, the jury at Luton Crown Court heard that the complainants, who cannot be named for legal reasons, were forced to work in the Connors' block paving business.

The 13-week trial heard the men were allegedly given next to no food, forced to wash in cold water and paid little or no money for working up to 19 hours a day, six days a week.

The charges follow a raid on the Green Acres travellers' site near Leighton Buzzard in Bedfordshire in September last year.

The four members of the Connors family controlled and exploited a number of homeless people, alcoholics and drug addicts for financial gain, prosecutors said.

Victims were recruited from homeless centres, soup kitchens or simply off the streets and made to carry out daily physical labour,