Former slave family brands
Reporter HE escaped from a life of slavery but now Rod Smith has said he hopes the notorious Rooney family rot in jail after a court heard how they kept their workers in squalor and beat them black and blue.
After hearing how the traveller family were slammed behind bars for a combined 79 years for modern-day slavery, Rod described how he was beaten, not given his wages and made to sleep in an outside toilet when he was under their rule.
Now back in the North East, Rod has relived his nightmare to tell the Chronicle his story.
“They were evil, pure evil, and I hope they rot in hell,” said Rod.
“I don’t think they got enough, in prison they will get a warm bed and warm food – that’s more than I got.”
Rod met up with the Rooneys when he fell on hard times in 1990 and was sleeping rough on the streets of London outside Waterloo Station. It was there one night that he was picked up by members of the Rooney family who promised him work and somewhere to live.
“I snapped his hand off, I had come out of the army and moved in with a girlfriend in London but we split up and I had nowhere to live. I was sleeping rough and so when I was offered a job and somewhere to live, I jumped at the chance,” added Rod, 46.
But all was not as it seemed and Rod says he was put to work in 14-hour days, laying Tarmac driveways, seven days a week and given nothing or £50 a week – depending on how the family felt.
“I was getting beatings, a lot of beatings, and I wasn’t getting my wages.
“I was told I would have somewhere to live but I ended up sleeping in the wagon cabin and then a few months in an awful caravan and then back to the wagon. They would beat me black and blue, it was regular.
“They then conned me to get a plot on a councilrun travellers’ site. My housing benefit was paying for the plot and their kids stayed in the caravan on it. I