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British Police Say ‘Invisible Handcuffs’ Restrained Women for 30 Years
British Police Say ‘Invisible Handcuffs’ Restrained Women for 30 Years
(35 minutes later)
LONDON — Police investigating the case of three women who claim to have been held against their will for 30 years said Friday that the victims had been brainwashed and imprisoned by “invisible handcuffs” in an unremarkable house in South London.
LONDON — Police detectives investigating the case of three women who claim to have been held against their will for 30 years said Friday that the victims had been brainwashed and imprisoned by “invisible handcuffs” in an unremarkable house in South London.
A police officer leading the investigation also revealed that a couple in their 60s, arrested Thursday on suspicion of holding the three women, had also been detained in the 1970s, but he refused to elaborate further. The two suspects, both 67, were both released on bail late on Thursday after surrendering their passports.
A police commander leading the investigation also revealed that a couple in their 60s, arrested Thursday on suspicion of holding the three women, had also been detained in the 1970s, but he refused to elaborate. The two suspects, both 67 and unidentified under police protocol, were released on bail late on Thursday after surrendering their passports.
“What we have uncovered so far is a complicated and disturbing picture of emotional control over many years,” the police commander, Steve Rodhouse, told a news conference. “Brainwashing would be a simple term, but I think that belittles the years of emotional abuse these victims have had to endure.”
“What we have uncovered so far is a complicated and disturbing picture of emotional control over many years,” Commander Steve Rodhouse of the Metropolitan Police said at a news conference. “Brainwashing would be a simple term, but I think that belittles the years of emotional abuse these victims have had to endure.”
Mr. Rodhouse said the case was different from others involving domestic servitude because it was “not as brutally obvious as women being physically restrained inside an address and not being allowed to leave.”
Commander Rodhouse said the case was different from others involving domestic servitude because it was “not as brutally obvious as women being physically restrained inside an address and not being allowed to leave.”
Through slow questioning of the traumatized victims, the police were trying to determine “what were the invisible handcuffs that were used to exert such a degree of control over these women,” he added.
Through careful questioning of the traumatized victims, the police are trying to determine “what were the invisible handcuffs that were used to exert such a degree of control over these women,” he added.
A Malaysian woman, 69, an Irish woman, 57, and a British woman, 30, were freed from the house in the Lambeth district in South London last month after one of the women contacted a charity that helps victims of forced marriage, the police said Thursday. They said the youngest woman had apparently been held captive her entire life.
A Malaysian woman, 69, an Irishwoman, 57, and a British woman, 30, were freed from the house in the Lambeth district last month after one of the women contacted a charity that helps victims of forced marriage, the police said Thursday. They said the youngest woman had apparently been held captive her entire life.
The police said the suspects in the case were not British but declined to identify their nationality.
The police said the suspects in the case were not British but declined to identify their nationality.
The police say that at least one of the victims complained of beatings. However, all this went on behind the facade of an “unremarkable” house, Mr. Rodhouse said.
The police say that at least one of the victims complained of beatings. However, all this went on behind the facade of an “unremarkable” house, Commander Rodhouse said.
“To all intents and purposes, to the outside world this may have appeared to be a normal family,” with both the suspects and victims probably coming into contact with public services, he added.
“To all intents and purposes, to the outside world this may have appeared to be a normal family,” with both the suspects and the victims probably coming into contact with public services, he added.
Kevin Hyland, a detective inspector in the Metropolitan Police’s Human Trafficking Unit, said on Thursday that there was no evidence that the women had been sexually abused.
Kevin Hyland, a detective inspector in the Metropolitan Police’s Human Trafficking Unit, said on Thursday that there was no evidence that the women had been sexually abused.
But an official close to the investigation, who spoke on the condition of anonymity because he was not authorized to speak to the news media, said that at least one of the women might have been forcibly married to the man in the house.
But an official close to the investigation, who spoke on the condition of anonymity because he was not authorized to speak to the news media, said that at least one of the women might have been forcibly married to the man in the house.
“The woman appears to have been through some kind of religious marriage ceremony with the male member of the couple that kept them,” he said. All three appeared to have been used as unpaid domestic helpers, but “manipulated” into believing that staying was in their best interest, he said. The oldest one, from Malaysia, had been with the couple the longest, 30 years, he said.
The story dominated the evening news on the main broadcasters on Thursday and led the home pages of all major newspapers as Britons tried to grasp the idea that three adult women might have been kept as domestic slaves in their capital. A statement from the Home Office emphasized that the police still needed to get to the bottom of the matter, but also expressed “determination to tackle the scourge of modern slavery.”
After a television documentary on forced marriages was broadcast in October, the Irish woman contacted Freedom Charity, which specializes in helping victims of such marriages and whose work was featured in the program, according to the charity’s founder, Aneeta Prem.
“I can’t go into too many details, but they managed to get to a phone and make a call to us,” she told Sky News. “We started to talk to them in depth when we could. It had to be prearranged when they were able to make calls to us and it had to be done very secretly because they felt they were in massive danger.”
Working with Freedom Charity, police officers managed to track down the home where the women were living. They moved swiftly to free them, but then spent several weeks assembling evidence before making the arrests on Thursday.
Ms. Prem said she was still investigating how the women could have remained hidden from view for so long. “In a very busy capital city we often don’t know our neighbors,” she told the BBC. “We’re looking at people who were kept against their will in an ordinary residential street in central London.”
The women are at a secret location and are being questioned by interrogators who specialize in dealing with trauma victims, the police said.
“All three women were deeply affected by this activity and traumatized,” Detective Hyland said. “It was essential that we took things slowly in order to establish the facts of the period in what was alleged to be servitude or domestic labor.” He added that because interrogators were treading carefully, many of the details of the women’s ordeal remained unknown or were emerging only slowly.
Detective Hyland said it was “fair to suggest that the 30-year-old had no contact with the outside world that we would see as normal.”
He added that he could not say whether she was the daughter of the arrested man.
“We don’t know whether the 30-year-old was born in the house, but the 30-year-old has spent her whole life we believe in servitude or forced labor,” Detective Hyland said.
