‘Animals can never change’
WOMAN WHO HELPED BRING DOWN ‘JUICY THE PIMP’ TELLS OF HELL AT HIS HANDS
A WOMAN who was raped and forced into prostitution has spoken of her hell at the hands of a cruel gangmaster.
Julius Rigo – known by the nickname ‘Juicy’ – pimped out women for as little as £10 at a time on the streets of Levenshulme and Longsight.
If they didn’t earn enough, he would starve them.
Men under his control were beaten and forced to work long hours in a south Manchester car wash.
All 13 were made to live in cramped terraces in Gorton and Levenshulme.
The slaves – all Czech nationals – tried desperately to shield children living at the properties from the horrors they were exposed to. One victim – known by the pseudonym Sabina – was raped by Rigo and forced into sexwork 12 hours a day.
Having known Rigo, 37, for many years, she trusted him to help her find work her in the UK.
“He was my friend,” she says. “He said: ‘don’t worry, we will help you, together we will make something.’”
But she says ‘Juicy’ started increasingly to gamble and fritter away money on drugs – and he turned nasty.
Sabina claims that on one occasion, Rigo forced a man under his control to cut up and eat a pair of knickers because of a mix-up over the laundry.
She also alleges violence at the hands of the cruel gangmaster. Sabina’s misery at Rigo’s hands only came to an end when she was picked up by immigration officers while working at a car wash. Having taken part in a ‘sham marriage,’ she spent three months at Yarl’s Wood immigration detention centre in Bedford, where she eventually spoke to a solicitor who recognised her as a victim of modern slavery. It was only ‘Sabina’ then that Sabina, and the other victims, started to speak to officers at Greater Manchester Police’s modern slavery unit.
Rigo was last week jailed for 18 years in the Czech Republic for human trafficking, rape, blackmail, threats to kill and bigamy. But without the evidence of Sabina and the other slaves, he might never have been caught.
“He didn’t say sorry,” she says. “How can these people not say sorry? Animals can never change.” Rigo’s wife, Darina Rigova, 32, was also jailed at the county court in Usti nad Labem.
She was handed a nine-year sentence for human trafficking for her part in the two-year scheme.
Rigo’s accomplice Karel Adam, 48, was convicted of human trafficking and jailed for six years.