# 3 women freed after 30 years as captives in the UK **URL:** \ **Category:** Miscellaneous and Personal Stuff I Must Share\ **Created:** [November 21, 2013, 6:29pm UTC](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/3-women-freed-after-30-years-as-captives-in-the-uk/674456 "2013-11-21T18:29:41Z")\ **Posts on this page:** 9\ **Page:** 1
**Author:** ![Snowboarder\_Bo](https://sea3.discourse-cdn.com/straightdope/user_avatar/boards.straightdope.com/snowboarder_bo/32/229_2.png) [@Snowboarder\_Bo](https://boards.straightdope.com/u/Snowboarder_Bo)\ **Post date:** [November 21, 2013, 6:29pm UTC](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/3-women-freed-after-30-years-as-captives-in-the-uk/674456/1 "2013-11-21T18:29:41Z")
Was Ariel Castro part of some crazy cult that thrives on keeping people captive? :eek: Prolly not, but [this story from the UK](http://hosted.ap.org/dynamic/stories/E/EU_BRITAIN_SLAVERY?SITE=AP&SECTION=HOME&TEMPLATE=DEFAULT&CTIME=2013-11-21-12-24-48) is just breaking here in the US. [ > [@](#): > > London’s Metropolitan Police announced the rescues after two people - a man and a woman, both 67 - were arrested early Thursday as part of an investigation into slavery and domestic servitude. > > The investigation was launched after one of the captive women contacted a charity, which then went to the police. Those freed “some weeks ago” are a 69-year-old Malaysian woman, a 57-year-old Irish woman and a 30-year-old British woman. > > Police said they do not believe the victims are related and said there was no evidence of sexual abuse. While it is unclear if the 30-year-old was born in the south London house, she appears to have been held in domestic servitude for her entire life, the force said. ]([http://hosted.ap.org/dynamic/stories/E/EU\_BRITAIN\_SLAVERY?SITE=AP&SECTION=HOME&TEMPLATE=DEFAULT&CTIME=2013-11-21-12-24-48](http://hosted.ap.org/dynamic/stories/E/EU_BRITAIN_SLAVERY?SITE=AP&SECTION=HOME&TEMPLATE=DEFAULT&CTIME=2013-11-21-12-24-48)) WTF??? Her ENTIRE LIFE? My mind is still boggling too much to come up with a fitting punishment for the two perps, given that the UK doesn’t have the DP. ---
**Author:** ![Baker](https://avatars.discourse-cdn.com/v4/letter/b/bb73d2/32.png) [@Baker](https://boards.straightdope.com/u/Baker)\ **Post date:** [November 21, 2013, 10:00pm UTC](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/3-women-freed-after-30-years-as-captives-in-the-uk/674456/2 "2013-11-21T22:00:19Z")
Eye for an eye. Put them in servitude for thirty years. At their age that would be a life sentence. Grungy servitude, cleaning toilets, doing laundry in a hospital for geriatric patients, that sort of thing. ---
**Author:** ![Mind\_Your\_Head](https://avatars.discourse-cdn.com/v4/letter/m/c5a1d2/32.png) [@Mind\_Your\_Head](https://boards.straightdope.com/u/Mind_Your_Head)\ **Post date:** [November 21, 2013, 10:17pm UTC](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/3-women-freed-after-30-years-as-captives-in-the-uk/674456/3 "2013-11-21T22:17:05Z")
> [@Baker](#): > > Eye for an eye. > > Put them in servitude for thirty years. At their age that would be a life sentence. > > Grungy servitude, cleaning toilets, doing laundry in a hospital for geriatric patients, that sort of thing. Many people do this for a living and quite readily. That’s not a punishment. The more of these horror stories I read or hear the more I cannot get my head around the fact that some people can carry out such atrocities upon their fellow beings. It is beyond my comprehension. I cannot think of any suitable punishment other than being chained to a dungeon wall for the rest of their lives. Or maybe the victims should be asked what they see as fitting. ---
**Author:** ![Baker](https://avatars.discourse-cdn.com/v4/letter/b/bb73d2/32.png) [@Baker](https://boards.straightdope.com/u/Baker)\ **Post date:** [November 21, 2013, 11:22pm UTC](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/3-women-freed-after-30-years-as-captives-in-the-uk/674456/4 "2013-11-21T23:22:35Z")
> [@Mind\_Your\_Head](#): > > Many people do this for a living and quite readily. That’s not a punishment. > > The more of these horror stories I read or hear the more I cannot get my head around the fact that some people can carry out such atrocities upon their fellow beings. It is beyond my comprehension. > > I cannot think of any suitable punishment other than being chained to a dungeon wall for the rest of their lives. Or maybe the victims should be asked what they see as fitting. I agree, it’s not a punishment to people who do it _willingly_, for a wage. But slavers are the kind of people who would recoil from such work, so, make them do it. If you chained them in a dungeon society would get no benefit from it. On another board, I’m a player in their own Death Pool game, and one of the people on my list is a woman named Sante Kimes. [Sante Kimes - Wikipedia](http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Sante_Kimes) ---
**Author:** ![Atomic\_Alex](https://sea3.discourse-cdn.com/straightdope/user_avatar/boards.straightdope.com/atomic_alex/32/175_2.png) [@Atomic\_Alex](https://boards.straightdope.com/u/Atomic_Alex)\ **Post date:** [November 21, 2013, 11:40pm UTC](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/3-women-freed-after-30-years-as-captives-in-the-uk/674456/5 "2013-11-21T23:40:02Z")
> [@Baker](#): > > Eye for an eye. > > Put them in servitude for thirty years. At their age that would be a life sentence. This a country where you can beat someone to death with a hammer and get a five year jail sentence: > **[Andrew Lorimer's family 'disgusted' by killers' jail sentences](https://www.bbc.co.uk/news/uk-northern-ireland-24933136)** > > The family of a man who was beaten to death with a hammer say they are "absolutely disgusted'' at the sentences handed down to his three killers. And re the subject of the thread this is starting to get depressingly common: > **[Couple who kept girl servant jailed](https://www.bbc.co.uk/news/av/uk-24646807)** > > A couple who trafficked a 10-year-old girl to the UK, who was repeatedly raped and kept as a servant for nearly a decade, have been jailed. There are more similar stories but I can’t locate them on the BBC website. Everytime I hear a story like this I wonder which other poor person is being kept captive like that right now but nobody knows about it. :\ ---
**Author:** ![Maserschmidt](https://sea3.discourse-cdn.com/straightdope/user_avatar/boards.straightdope.com/maserschmidt/32/18829_2.png) [@Maserschmidt](https://boards.straightdope.com/u/Maserschmidt)\ **Post date:** [November 22, 2013, 2:29am UTC](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/3-women-freed-after-30-years-as-captives-in-the-uk/674456/6 "2013-11-22T02:29:38Z")
We have these in the US too: [http://www.foxnews.com/us/2012/03/02/wealthy-new-york-widow-accused-keeping-domestic-slave/](http://www.foxnews.com/us/2012/03/02/wealthy-new-york-widow-accused-keeping-domestic-slave/) > [@](#): > > REXFORD, N.Y – A wealthy upstate New York widow allegedly turned her multimillion-dollar mansion into a “forced labor” camp where her helpless immigrant maid worked 17-hour days for years while sleeping in a closet. ---
**Author:** ![snowthx](https://sea3.discourse-cdn.com/straightdope/user_avatar/boards.straightdope.com/snowthx/32/10660_2.png) [@snowthx](https://boards.straightdope.com/u/snowthx)\ **Post date:** [November 22, 2013, 4:32am UTC](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/3-women-freed-after-30-years-as-captives-in-the-uk/674456/7 "2013-11-22T04:32:33Z")
> [@Mind\_Your\_Head](#): > > The more of these horror stories I read or hear the more I cannot get my head around the fact that some people can carry out such atrocities upon their fellow beings. It is beyond my comprehension. So it seems our capacity for doing good is constrained, but our capacity for evil is unlimited. ---
**Author:** ![Staggerlee](https://sea3.discourse-cdn.com/straightdope/user_avatar/boards.straightdope.com/staggerlee/32/3134_2.png) [@Staggerlee](https://boards.straightdope.com/u/Staggerlee)\ **Post date:** [November 26, 2013, 5:07pm UTC](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/3-women-freed-after-30-years-as-captives-in-the-uk/674456/8 "2013-11-26T17:07:25Z")
The latest I’ve heard on this is that the couple were involved in a sort of Marxist commune in the 1970s, so this is more a ‘Commie Cult’ situation than your everyday slavery. Has Fox News pinned this on Obama yet? ---
**Author:** ![DJ\_Motorbike](https://avatars.discourse-cdn.com/v4/letter/d/90ced4/32.png) [@DJ\_Motorbike](https://boards.straightdope.com/u/DJ_Motorbike)\ **Post date:** [November 28, 2013, 5:02pm UTC](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/3-women-freed-after-30-years-as-captives-in-the-uk/674456/9 "2013-11-28T17:02:58Z")
> [@Staggerlee](#): > > The latest I’ve heard on this is that the couple were involved in a sort of Marxist commune in the 1970s, so this is more a ‘Commie Cult’ situation than your everyday slavery. Has Fox News pinned this on Obama yet? Yes, the real victim here is Obama. After he’s been crucified will we be cleansed of our sins?