Cruelty inflicted on modern day slave ‘wake-up call to all of us’

Craig Kinsella, who has an IQ of only 85, was made to use a bucket to go to the toilet and sleep on a piece of carpet, using a curtain as a blanket, at the home of David, Donna and Jamie Rooke in Grenoside, Sheffield.

David Rooke, who runs an ice cream business, together with his wife and son, were yesterday told they were guilty of “almost unbelievable” cruelty as they were jailed for a total of nearly 11 years at Sheffield Crown Court.

Mr Kinsella, a 34-year-old father-of-two, carried out tasks including picking up dog mess and cleaning the family’s ice cream vans for up to 17 hours a day.

He effectively worked for nothing and was given only one unheated meal a day, meaning he often had to scavenge in bins for food.

Members of the family subjected him to regular beatings during the six-week period he lived in the garage between May and July, often punching and kicking him and even attacking him with a spade handle and pick-axe handle.

Prosectors said Mr Kinsella, who was abused as a child, was not physically stopped from leaving but had his will broken by the family’s threats and violence and was too scared to do so.

Neighbours living near the Rooke family home on Halifax Road told police Kinsella was “like their slave” and “talked to like a dog” by the family, who never allowed him in the house.

And it was only when a neighbour called 999, prompting police to attend, did the extent of the abuse suffered by Mr Kinsella come to light.

The detective in charge of the investigation said Mr Kinsella would have been killed if police had not intervened.

Sentencing the Rookes yesterday, Judge Peter Kelson QC said the case was a “wake-up call to us all”.

“It is staggering this has happened in our society. It is almost unbelievable.”

He added: “Craig Kinsella’s will has completely been broken by the way you treated him. You treated him like a dog. Man’s inhumanity to man never ceases to shock.

“You end up in a position where Craig Kinsella was living in your garage, he was having to defecate in a bucket, he was not allowed in your house, he was fed very little.

“He was kept hungry. He was constantly beaten and battered. When one sees the CCTV you just have the awful feeling that he was just your punch-bag.”

Commending the “expertly presented” investigation by officers from South Yorkshire Police that led to their convictions, he said: “My fear is that there are more of these cases about and we are now only beginning to discover them.”

David Rooke, 44, who admitted false imprisonment and five counts of causing actual bodily harm, was jailed for six-and-a-half years and ordered to pay Mr Kinsella £15,000 in compensation.

His son Jamie, 19, admitted affray and five counts of causing actual bodily harm and was jailed for four years, while Donna Rooke received a four month sentence after admitting a specimen count of battery.

CCTV footage played in court and taken from cameras in the family garden shows all three members of the family assaulting Mr Kinsella, who displays no sign of fighting back.

At one point David Rooke grabs the victim by the neck and later kicks him while on the floor, while Jamie Rooke is seen repeatedly punching him.

Mr Kelson said: “We have seen prosecutions in this country for slavery and are beginning to wake up to the fact that in certain circumstances people do completely break the will of other people and use them for their own ends.

“For the two-month period he simply had no will to leave your power. He was under your control. He was treated horrendously badly, he was treated like a dog. A witness said he was like their slave and they talked to him like a dog.

“The conditions were grotesque and you were just exploiting him, I am quite satisfied. This was two months of horrendous violence, one could not watch the CCTV without wincing repeatedly.”

Detective Inspector Vicky Short, who led the investigation, said: “The physical and mental abuse meted out by the Rooke family on a highly vulnerable man plumbed the depths of depravity.

“David, Donna and Jamie Rooke abused Mr Kinsella for their own pleasure until his spirit and will to stand up for himself and fight back was crushed.

“It has hard to understand how any human being could treat an individual in such a grotesque, callous and inhuman manner.

“I am confident that if we had not received that phone call that day last July we would have been investigating a murder.”