London A Romanian gypsy couple were Friday evening jailed for bringing a child into Britain and keeping her as a slave. She was saved only when a 53-year-old man kept as a slave in the garden shed of the family's London council house escaped — and told police of a ‘Cinderella' used as a servant.
Officers found the seven-year-old girl had been forced to sleep on the floor, had no possessions beyond the filthy clothes she was wearing and had been "beaten like a carpet".
She had been kept barefoot and eight of her black rotten teeth had to be removed. She was unable to count to ten in her own language. The family's eight children, meanwhile, wore fashionable clothes, and were allowed to go to school. The family used money from crime and benefits to buy ‘palaces' in Romania.
On Wednesday, husband and wife Aurel-Ilie Zlatea, 45, and Alexandra Oaie, 44, and their sons Marian Neamu, 25, and Florin Zlatea, 23, were jailed for between nine and 13 years for a series of offences. The sons had also raped their adult slave after he asked for food on New Year's Eve.
