A gang of people traffickers who took control of their victims’ bank accounts and seized housing and other benefits payments worth thousands were jailed for 25 years.
They then forced them to hand over all correspondence from banks and benefits agencies to avoid detection.
The traffickers forced vulnerable Slovakians to hand over benefits and perform manual labour for a pittance.
Leeds Crown Court was told how one of the victim’s children was seen “short of clothing and often very hungry”.
While at the same time members of one of the defendant’s families living on the same street were “able to display an opulent lifestyle”.
Some of the 37 victims identified during the case were deliberately targeted because they were homeless or addicted to alcohol.
The group of seven people jailed were comprised of two families.
Six members of a Slovakian family arranged travel from Slovakia into the UK while a father and son from another family put them to work in their property business.
Judge Mushtaq Khokhar told Leeds Crown Court, West Yorkshire, how the victims were paid as little as £5-7 per day while converting two of the defendants’ rental properties.
They also performed work on the defendants’ own homes while being paid nothing.
The gang was brought to justice following a police raid on a number of residential properties in the Armley area of Leeds, in 2013.
As he sentenced the defendants to 24 years and nine months in jail Judge Khokhar said: “This is a sad case.
“Promises were made in Slovakia of a better life to these victims in the UK – promises primarily of accommodation and a regular good wage.
“But the complainants’ families could not provide for their children’s basic needs.
“Victims were threatened they would be sent back to Slovakia – victims thought at least they had a roof over their heads and their children were in education.
“Given their daily allowance it was hardly surprising there were turning up at the doorstep of a defendant begging for food.
“There can be no greater humiliation in one’s dignity than to be an able-bodied person working hard all the hours God sends and still not able to provide for his children.
“There can be no greater position of hopelessness and desperation than to see envy in his children’s eyes because his friends have everything while he has nothing.”
Frantisek Cisar, 37, of Bradford, was found guilty of Conspiracy to arrange or facilitate travel to the United Kingdom for Exploitation and six counts of arranging or facilitating the travel within the United Kingdom of another for exploitation.
He was jailed for nine years.
Bohuslava Cisarova, 33, of Bradford was found guilty of one count of conspiracy to arrange or facilitate travel to the United Kingdom and two counts of arranging or facilitating the travel within the United Kingdom of another for exploitation.
She was jailed for three years.
Arpad Jano, 41, of Bradford, was found guilty of one count of Conspiracy to arrange or facilitate travel to the United Kingdom for Exploitation and three counts of arranging or facilitating the travel within the United Kingdom of another for exploitation.
He was jailed for four-and-a-half years.
Bohuslava Cisarova, 60, of Bradford, was found guilty of one count of Conspiracy to arrange or facilitate travel to the United Kingdom for Exploitation and one count of arranging or facilitating the travel within the United Kingdom of another for exploitation.
She was jailed for two years.
Marcel Cisar, 34, of Bradford, was found guilty of one count of arranging or facilitating the travel within the United Kingdom of another for exploitation and two counts of arranging of facilitating the travel to the United Kingdom of another for exploitation.
He was jailed for 15 months.
Aurangzeb Naseem,43, of Leeds was found guilty of three counts of arranging or facilitating the travel within the United Kingdom of another for exploitation.
He was jailed for three-and-a-half years.
Mohammed Nazeem, 59, of Otley Road, Leeds, was found guilty of three counts of arranging or facilitating the travel within the United Kingdom of another for exploitation.
He was jailed for 18 months.
By Ben Gelblum and Ben McVay