Of jailed traveller them ‘pure evil’
VICTIM BEATEN AND SLEPT IN OUTSIDE TOILET
had to live in the outside toilet cubicle in the freezing cold. It was below zero temperatures and I had to wrap up in sleeping bags and put my coat around my feet. I thought I was going to die, I was so cold.”
Nine members of the traveller family in Lincolnshire were jailed for modern-day slavery offences.
One victim, whose ordeal spanned more than 25 years, was made to dig his own grave.
The head of the famRooney ily, Martin Senior, was jailed for 10 years, while two of his sons were each jailed for more than 15 years.
And the family were described as “chilling in their mercilessness”.
Rod says he knows too well how they operated. But it was during a driveway job in Folkestone in Kent in the spring of 1991 that the dad-of-three was set upon once again by members of the family.
“They would beat me so much that sometimes I couldn’t work. Once my tooth went through my lip and I had to pull my lip off my tooth, it took a couple of weeks to heal. They were evil, nasty. That was the one that broke the camel’s back and then one night, in the spring of 1991, I escaped.
“It was the only time they weren’t watching me. I didn’t dare hitchhike during the day and only did it at night. It took me three days to get back to the North East,” added Rod, who originates from Jarrow.
“I came back here and got a bedsit and a job in a call centre and got my life back on track. I packaged that part of my life up, put it to the back of my mind and moved on.
“Then I saw it on the news that they had been jailed and it all came back to me. I only wish I had told the police and they might have been put away earlier.
“I’ve tried to put it to the back of my mind and couldn’t believe it when I heard the name Martin Rooney Senior on the news. When I was with them, their kids were only nine or 10, but it’s been in their blood and they are carrying it on through another generation. They have grown up with it.
“They are evil, nasty people and I hope they rot in there.” Rod Smith