In first case of its kind for more than 200 years the travellers are likely to go for a long stay behind bars
Over three decades of forced labour by vulnerable men would have made millions for the Connors family the police believe.
The men were forced to carry out gruelling manual work for up to 19 hours a day, six days a week, and were often left starving.
Yesterday the four were convicted under new ‘servitude’ legislation, which was introduced two years ago because of the growing problem of exploitation.
Homeless men, including a Gulf War veteran and a former priest, were promised comfortable lodgings and paid jobs in the lucrative block-paving and scrap metal businesses run by the Connors.
But, once they arrived at various travellers’ sites across Britain, the men were kept in conditions akin to ‘concentration camp’.
They were made to shave their heads and were given uniforms to mark them as slaves. They were not allowed to shower for months at a time and had to sleep in horse boxes. The travellers threatened them of dire consequences like they would be badly beaten or murdered if they tried to escape, it was claimed. Promises of wages never materialized.
Yesterday Tommy Connors Snr, 52, and his relatives James John, 34, Patrick, 20, and Josie, 31, were convicted of controlling, exploiting, verbally abusing and beating men for financial gain at Luton Crown Court.
Detectives believe the true scale of the criminal enterprise was far bigger. They believe hundreds of vulnerable men may have been picked up at soup kitchens, night shelters and job centres by the Connors with the offer of work during the past 30 years.
During their captivity the slaves were driven across Britain and over huge sheathes of Europe to lay block paving on private driveways.
After the initial arrests, the focus of the investigation widened when police forces in Eastern European countries and Russia said they had discovered criminal links to the Connors.
The travellers always insisted on being paid in cash for their jobs.
The case was described in court as the first ‘quasi-slavery trial in this country for over 200 years’, and brings into focus the growing problem of human trafficking and slavery in Britain.
The United Kingdom Human Trafficking Centre said that similar criminal enterprises exploiting workers may be operating at other traveller and gipsy sites.