A family of five who lived a luxurious life at the expense of homeless drug addicts and alcoholics forced to work as slaves were on Thursday jailed for about 20 years.
William Connors, 52, was sent to prison at Bristol Crown Court for more than six years, his wife Mary, 48, received more than two years, and the couple’s son, John, 29, was jailed for four years.
They were all convicted last week of conspiracy to require a person to perform forced or compulsory labor between April 2010 and March 2011 following a three-month trial.
They had also faced a second charge of conspiracy to hold another person in servitude but the trial judge Michael Longman ordered the jury to find the defendants not guilty of that offence.
Their other son James, 20, got three years of detention in a young offenders’ institution, while their son-in-law Miles Connors, 24, received a three-year prison sentence.
The Connors owned homes with hot tubs; a fleet of cars including a Rolls-Royce and a Mercedes saloon; enjoyed Caribbean cruises and holidays in Mexico and Dubai; and had £500,000 in the bank.
But their fortune came from constructing driveways and patios using a workforce of vulnerable men kept in squalid conditions, paid a pittance, and living in fear of violence.
The workers were given alcohol and cannabis but so little food they resorted to scavenging from dustbins for leftovers.
