How does slavery work now?

Beyond Today

BBC

News

4.6 • 1.1K Ratings

🗓️ 9 September 2019

⏱️ 21 minutes

🔗️ Recording | iTunes | RSS

🧾️ Download transcript

Summary

In July eight people were convicted for their part in Britain’s biggest ever modern slavery prosecution. The gang were part of an organised crime group from Poland which enslaved hundreds of people. The victims were tricked into coming to the UK with the promise of work. When they arrived they were forced into menial labour, had no access to their wages and housed in rat-infested accommodation while the gang made an estimated £2m over five years. We speak to BBC Panorama’s Duncan Staff who followed the story with West Midlands Police, and interviewed many of the victims including Mariusz Rykaczewski, a former soldier who was enslaved, beaten and starved by the gang. He was one of 66 witnesses who provided evidence against the slavers. We also speak to Caroline Haughey QC, one of the country’s foremost experts on modern slavery and the lead prosecutor for the case. She explains how it took four years to bring the slavers to justice and why this case affects every one of us. Producers: Alicia Burrell, Philly Beaumont and Duncan Barber Mixed by Nicolas Raufast Editor: John Shields

Transcript

Click on a timestamp to play from that location

0:00.0	BBC Sounds, music radio podcasts.
0:04.6	Hello, I'm Matthew Price.
0:08.1	This is Beyond Today from BBC Radio 4.
0:10.8	Every day we ask one big question about one big story.
0:14.0	Today, how does slavery work now?
0:27.0	It's one of the stories that bubbles along in the background. You see a headline about it from time to time.
0:35.0	Modern day slavery, vulnerable people being exploited by greedy criminal networks, working for a couple of pounds an hour.
0:42.0	A journalist for the BBC's panorama programme, Duncan's staff,
0:46.0	had been working on a documentary about slavery in Britain for months,
0:51.0	and he kept finding the same thing.
0:53.0	Doing the interviews with the slaves was one of the most unusual experiences I've ever had as a journalist.
0:59.0	We interviewed them in the basement of Quaker Meeting House in Bath because it was a quiet space and we knew you know
1:04.3	no one was going to interrupt us and and I asked them all the same list of questions
1:08.3	a fairly straightforward who what when, list of questions.
1:13.2	And the same thing happened in interview after interview.
1:15.8	These guys would start talking, and then they would just break down.
1:18.4	They all cried, and I wasn't pushing them anyway.
1:21.4	I was just asking straightforward questions and it was clear
1:23.8	that they'd all suffered some pretty deep long-term damage.
1:29.0	What he didn't know when he started interviewing for his film was that one of the people he was speaking to had been enslaved by a criminal gang,
1:36.0	a mafia-like family that was about to become the target of the biggest ever
1:40.0	anti-slavery prosecution this country has seen and that the slaves
	...

Please login to see the full transcript.

Previous episode | Next episode

Disclaimer: The podcast and artwork embedded on this page are from BBC, and are the property of its owner and not affiliated with or endorsed by Tapesearch.

Generated transcripts are the property of BBC and are distributed freely under the Fair Use doctrine. Transcripts generated by Tapesearch are not guaranteed to be accurate.