MOSCOW, October 16 (RIA Novosti) - Manchester Crown Court has obliged a millionaire couple to pay £100,000 ($160,000) as compensation to a deaf 20-year-old girl whom they kept as a slave and tortured for ten years, the BBC conveys.
In 2009 trading standards representatives had inspected the property of the Ashars due to allegations of money laundering when out of the blue they discovered an emaciated girl in the family’s “sparse, cold and damp cellar”, recalls the Independent.
Policemen found out that the girl was deaf, illiterate and could only express her feelings through body language and facial gestures.
Subsequently, investigative officers established that the girl, now roughly 20, had been illegally transported by the Ashars from Pakistan and spent some ten years as a slave. Furthermore, it was revealed that she had suffered numerous cases of rape by Ilyas Ashar (85). In addition, his wife Tallat (69) and daughter Faaiza (47) had exploited the young girl to claim benefits in her name. She was neither paid for her work, nor received any of the £42,000 ($67,000) transferred in benefits.
In February Ilyas Ashar was sentenced to 15 years of imprisonment for rape, trafficking and benefit fraud; Tallat Ashar received a six year sentence and their daughter was punished with 300 hours of community service, both charged with human trafficking and benefit fraud.
The girl, whose name has not been publicized for ethical and legal reasons, now lives freely. She has significantly improved her communication skills by learning sign language at the Salford City Council’s social services department. Its chief Sue Lightup compared her liberation and success to “a butterfly coming out of a chrysalis,” quoted Free News Pos.
