Inside the filthy caravan where man was kept as a slave and fed scraps for 26 years

A man who was kept as a slave for more than two decades is set to receive a £352,000 payout after suing the government for inadequate compensation.

‘Victim A’ was forced to live in squalid conditions for 26 years while living in a caravan on a traveller’s site owned by the millionaire Rooney family in Lincolnshire.

The Rooney clan forced homeless men into slavery for more than two decades, forcing them to live in squalid caravans, working for little or no money and constantly enduring beatings.

Photos show the conditions inside the caravans where the slaves were forced to sleep – with dirty beds (one of which was a bench), no food and spoiled linens.

The Rooneys would beat their victims and make them fear for their lives, while forced to sleep in caravans that were ‘soaked with urine and faeces’.

Thanks to the payout from the government, Victim A will now be able to afford around-the-clock care, his sister said.

But fifteen other men held as slaves by the Rooney family died before ever seeing a handout.

Police said at the time of their discovery, the victims were poorly fed and often given ‘scraps’ of food from the Rooneys.

One victim was reportedly told to ‘dig your own grave’ if he didn’t sign a contract forcing him to work 12 hour days, seven days a week.

That victim’s sister said: ‘John Rooney said to him, ‘you’re going to work for me for the rest of your life’. My brother replied ‘oh, I don’t know about that’. Prior to that conversation, John Rooney had actually made him dig a hole.

‘And my brother said to him ”how much further do you want me to dig down?” And he (John) said ‘keep digging’ and at the end of the conversation said to him ”if you don’t sign this contract, that’s where you’re going, in that hole”.

The family made more than £1.5 million which they spent on a lavish lifestyle while their victims suffered, one man even had a concrete slab thrown at his face.

In 2017, ten men and one woman from the family were jailed for a total of 79 years and seven months at Nottingham Crown Court.

John, 31, Patrick, 31, Bridget, 55, Martin Snr, 57, Martin, 23, John, 53, Peter, 36, Gerard, 46, and Lawrence Rooney, 47, were all convicted of conspiring to require a person to perform forced or compulsory labour.

The two defendants who were the “most culpable” were twins Patrick and John Rooney who were jailed for 15-and-a-half and 15 years and nine months respectively.

Sentencing, Judge Timothy Spencer QC said the family were ‘chilling in their mercilessness’.

One of the victims was left a ‘devastated, shattered and broken man’.

The homeless slaves, aged between 18 and 63, were forced into hard labour, tarmacking and paving drives at their traveller sites in Drinsey Nook and Washingborough, Lincs.

The judge said: ‘You prayed on men who, for a variety of reasons, had fallen on hard times – men who had become homeless, alcoholic, men with mental health problems.’

Many of the victims were extremely vulnerable and had their state benefits stolen by the Rooneys.

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