Advertisement

We need your help now

Support from readers like you keeps The Journal open.

You are visiting us because we have something you value. Independent, unbiased news that tells the truth. Advertising revenue goes some way to support our mission, but this year it has not been enough.

If you've seen value in our reporting, please contribute what you can, so we can continue to produce accurate and meaningful journalism. For everyone who needs it.

Boarded up windows in Peckford Place, Brixton, south London Oliver Duggan/PA Wire/Press Association Images

London slavery case couple were leaders of a Maoist collective

The two have been named by British newspapers as Indian-born Aravindan Balakrishnan and his Tanzanian wife Chanda.

A COUPLE WHO allegedly held three women as “slaves” in a London house for 30 years were prominent Maoist activists in the 1970s, according to UK media reports.

The couple, named by British newspapers as Indian-born Aravindan Balakrishnan and his Tanzanian wife Chanda, were arrested on after their three alleged captives were freed in a police operation.

One of the victims, aged 30, is believed to have spent her entire life in servitude.

A Marxist history website said Balakrishnan, 73, was a high-ranking member of the Communist Party of England (Marxist-Leninist) but had been suspended in 1974 because of the “conspiratorial and splittist activities” of his “clique”.

The website also said Balakrishnan, dubbed “Comrade Bala”, had been arrested in 1978 along with his wife during an attempt by police to shut down a Maoist centre in south London’s Brixton area.

Police have confirmed the couple were arrested in the 1970s, but have not said why.

Detectives have refused to confirm the identities of the couple, who have been bailed until January pending further investigations.

The three “slaves” — a 57-year-old Irish woman, a Malaysian aged 69 and the 30-year-old Briton — were freed on 25 October after one of them secretly contacted a charity.

Police said the women, who are believed to have been living in a flat in Brixton, were brainwashed and had reported being beating, but did not appear to have been sexually abused.

They were occasionally allowed out of the house and detectives are working to understand the “invisible handcuffs” that were used to control them.

‘Shared ideology’

Police revealed on Saturday that the two older victims had met their male captor through a “shared political ideology” and initially lived with him as part of a collective.

Meanwhile media reported that the youngest of the victims, had bombarded a male neighbour with love letters but warned him not to confront her “mad and evil” captors.

“I’m like a fly trapped in a spider’s web,” she reportedly told 26-year-old Marius Feneck in one of around 500 letters sent to him over eight years.

“These monsters here are mad and evil and racist — they’ve locked all doors and windows and keep keys on themselves at all times,” she is said to have written.

Police said today they were investigating 13 addresses linked to the couple, who came to Britain in the 1960s and are suspected of immigration offences as well as involvement in forced labour.

Detectives carried out house-to-house inquiries at the weekend in Brixton, one of London’s poorer, more ethnically-diverse districts that was the scene of notorious anti-government riots in the 1980s.

The exact address where the women were held has not been identified, but the police operation centred on a modern, low-rise block of flats in Brixton’s Peckford Place.

Specially-trained officers are now working with the women to try to understand what happened to them. All 37 officers in Scotland Yard’s Human Trafficking Unit are working on the investigation.

Home Secretary Theresa May said yesterday that tackling modern slavery in Britain was a “personal priority” and that other victims were “hidden in plain sight”.

- © AFP, 2013

Read: Suspect in London slavery case is older than first thought

Author
View 14 comments
Close
14 Comments
    Install the app to use these features.
    Mute L-Plate
    Favourite L-Plate
    Report
    Nov 25th 2013, 6:19 PM

    Why did this lad not come forward with the letters???

    221
    Install the app to use these features.
    Mute Joseph Dempsey
    Favourite Joseph Dempsey
    Report
    Nov 25th 2013, 6:48 PM

    More and more Bizzare, is this beginning to sound like an adventurous young Australian lass who managed to hoodwink an entire nation recently. 13 properties & former maoist activists? Bizzare stuff.

    66
    Install the app to use these features.
    Mute Stephen Murphy
    Favourite Stephen Murphy
    Report
    Nov 25th 2013, 8:13 PM

    Brainwashing and Communism, sounds like a movie and Hollywood will be thrilled. That something original, has fallen into their lap and one less re-make to watch?

    19
    Install the app to use these features.
    Mute Conor McGuinness
    Favourite Conor McGuinness
    Report
    Nov 25th 2013, 7:08 PM

    Only 37 anti-trafficking police in the Met?? Shows the authorities priorities. A massive international city like London is no doubt a massive hub and destination for the trafficking of women and children for domestic and sexual slavery.
    And now all those resources are being used on one case. Of course it’s important tht this case is fully investigated, but the women are safe now so the urgency is less. Surely the units very limited resources would now be better spent on freeing other slaves.

    18
    Install the app to use these features.
    Mute AICS (Steve Tracey)
    Favourite AICS (Steve Tracey)
    Report
    Nov 25th 2013, 7:52 PM

    Conor
    37 officers whose sole role is anti trafficking and will have received specialist training the rest of the Met can also be called to assist if necessary. How many do you think other police forces have?

    36
    Install the app to use these features.
    Mute Ray O Sullivan
    Favourite Ray O Sullivan
    Report
    Nov 25th 2013, 8:35 PM

    Strange ….very strange

    13
    Install the app to use these features.
    Mute Dom AcePlazo
    Favourite Dom AcePlazo
    Report
    Nov 25th 2013, 6:34 PM

    Send them all to Brixton jail, Sutcliffe is waiting for them.

    10
    Install the app to use these features.
    Mute john mitch
    Favourite john mitch
    Report
    Nov 25th 2013, 6:09 PM

    Give me brown sauce

    7
    Install the app to use these features.
    Mute Brad King
    Favourite Brad King
    Report
    Nov 25th 2013, 6:20 PM

    Comrade beat the system, by moving slaves to Brixton and learning how to fix them

    30
    Install the app to use these features.
    Mute Sean O'Keeffe
    Favourite Sean O'Keeffe
    Report
    Nov 25th 2013, 7:17 PM

    ” Without the slavery of antiquity, no modern socialism. […] It is very easy to inveigh against slavery and the like in general terms and pour out the vials of one’s lofty moral wrath on such infamies. […] But it does not tell us one word as to how these institutions arose, why they existed, and what role they have played in history. When we examine these questions, we are compelled to say […] that the introduction of slavery under the then prevailing conditions was a great step forward. […] Economic advance consisted in the increase and the development of production by means of slave labour. This could not be achieved within the crudest form of state, Oriental despotism, from India to Russia.”

    Friedrich Engels (co-author Communist Manifesto)

    10
    See 2 more replies ▾
    Install the app to use these features.
    Mute Sean O'Keeffe
    Favourite Sean O'Keeffe
    Report
    Nov 25th 2013, 7:17 PM

    “Without the slavery of antiquity, no modern socialism. […] It is very easy to inveigh against slavery and the like in general terms and pour out the vials of one’s lofty moral wrath on such infamies. […] But it does not tell us one word as to how these institutions arose, why they existed, and what role they have played in history. When we examine these questions, we are compelled to say […] that the introduction of slavery under the then prevailing conditions was a great step forward. […] Economic advance consisted in the increase and the development of production by means of slave labour. This could not be achieved within the crudest form of state, Oriental despotism, from India to Russia.”

    Friedrich Engels (co-

    4
    Install the app to use these features.
    Mute Eamonn O'Riain
    Favourite Eamonn O'Riain
    Report
    Nov 25th 2013, 8:01 PM

    one word answer: Kropotkin.

    4
    Install the app to use these features.
    Mute Steo Brady
    Favourite Steo Brady
    Report
    Nov 25th 2013, 7:20 PM

    Is someone gonna give that man some brown sauce??

    7
    Install the app to use these features.
    Mute Eamonn O'Riain
    Favourite Eamonn O'Riain
    Report
    Nov 25th 2013, 7:51 PM
    2
Submit a report
Please help us understand how this comment violates our community guidelines.
Thank you for the feedback
Your feedback has been sent to our team for review.
JournalTv
Video Player is loading.
Current Time 0:00
Duration 0:00
Loaded: 0%
Stream Type LIVE
Remaining Time 0:00
 
1x
    • descriptions off, selected
    • captions off, selected
      Next upNext up:
      News in 60 seconds