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		</div><p>The victim of a modern slavery gang was ordered to dig his own grave and told &#8220;that&#8217;s where you&#8217;re going&#8221; if he did not sign a bogus work contract. He was kept a &#8220;captive&#8221; by members of the Rooney family on a Lincolnshire traveller site and forced to work 12-hour days, seven-days-a-week for 26 years.</p>
<p>In an emotional account of his life, the man&#8217;s sister told how he was beaten with a rake when he overslept, had his teeth smashed with a concrete slab and had been left &#8220;psychologically damaged&#8221; by his dreadful ordeal.</p>
<p>Speaking anonymously, the woman told how her brother was first approached by one of the gang &#8220;on a seafront bench&#8221; and offered work. Candidly, she told how her sibling had developed a drug habit and become homeless, losing contact with his own family.</p>
<p>In an audio tape of her interview released by Lincolnshire Police, she said: &#8220;They were possibly watching him in the soup kitchens in the homeless centres. &#8220;Because that&#8217;s what they do to try and establish people that won&#8217;t be missed.</p>
<p>&#8220;He worked very, very long hours and he certainly had a very hard life. &#8220;From my understanding, it was for very little pay or no pay and I believe he was actually living in very squalid conditions and had lived in a stable for some part of his captivity.&#8221;</p>
<p>On Friday, the full story emerged of how 11 members of the Rooney gang were convicted of running a modern slavery ring, which kept 18 men in &#8220;truly shocking&#8221; conditions. While their victims were forced into a life of hard labour, the family &#8211; convicted of slavery and fraud charges at Nottingham Crown Court &#8211; lived a life of luxury, earned off the backs of their workers.</p>
<p>Telling of her brother&#8217;s ordeal at the gang&#8217;s hands, the victim&#8217;s sister said: &#8220;He was asked to sign a contract by John Rooney &#8211; a contract would have been out of his understanding. &#8220;And John Rooney said to him, &#8216;you&#8217;re going to work for me for the rest of your life&#8217;.</p>
<p>&#8220;My brother replied &#8216;oh, I don&#8217;t know about that&#8217;. &#8220;Prior to that conversation, John Rooney had actually made him dig a hole. &#8220;And my brother said to him &#8216;how much further do you want me to dig down?&#8217;<br />
&#8220;And he (John) said &#8216;keep digging&#8217; and at the end of the conversation said to him &#8216;if you don&#8217;t sign this contract, that&#8217;s where you&#8217;re going, in that hole&#8217;.</p>
<p>&#8220;We think he was captured for up to 26 years.&#8221; Giving an account of another conversation with her brother: &#8220;I said &#8216;how did you loose your front teeth because you used to have nice teeth when you were young&#8217;.<br />
&#8220;He looked at me and he said &#8216;oh concrete done that&#8217;, and I said &#8216;what do you mean?&#8217;</p>
<p>&#8220;And he said &#8216;oh, well John threw a slab at me one day, and it hit me in the mouth&#8217;.<br />
&#8220;That is the way that you get these people to become so subservient to them.&#8221; She added: &#8220;The brother we have back is certainly not the one that left us.</p>
<p>&#8220;I think the whole family feel a sense of guilt because had we had known this is what was happening to this poor lad, then would we have done things differently.&#8221;</p>
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