CCTV footage of members of the Rooke family assaulting Craig Kinsella.
WARNING: This video evidence is disturbing and not suitable for younger viewers.
Three members of the same family were locked up after enslaving the victim in their garage and treating him as 'their punchbag', a court heard. David Rooke, aged 44, was locked up for six years and six months, while his son Jamie, 19, was jailed for four years. Wife Donna Rooke, 40, was sentenced to four months behind bars.
Their victim, Craig Kinsella, aged 34, had been attacked with a spade handle, a crow bar and a pick axe handle, starved of food, and forced to sleep on a concrete floor with no access to a toilet.
When police were alerted by a neighbour, emaciated Mr Kinsella - who had been forced to scavenge for food in the wheelie bin - was found covered in bruises and suffering a broken arm. Ice cream business owner David Rooke admitted falsely imprisoning and attacking Mr Kinsella at their home in Halifax Road, Parson Cross.
Sentencing the Rookes, he said the case of modern-day slavery was 'almost unbelievable'. "Man's inhumanity to man never ceases to shock," he said. "It's staggering that this has been happening in our society, absolutely staggering. It's almost unbelievable. "But now we are seeing prosecutions in this country for slavery, and beginning to wake up to the fact that in some circumstances people do completely break the will of other people and use them to their own ends."
Prosecutor David Brooke said the victim's life was completely controlled by the Rookes who used 'casual violence and intimidation'. "This is a disturbing and unpleasant case," he said. Mr Brooke told the court one neighbour told police: "He was like their slave. They talked to him like a dog. They used horrible words. He never retaliated." Mr Brooke said the Rookes left Mr Kinsella so terrified he would work from 7.30am to midnight for no money, cleaning their garden and ice cream vans. He ended up living in their garage, eating occasional cold meals left out for him and using a bucket for a toilet. Mr Brooke said they even took his benefit money from him, telling him it was to pay for his food.
The court heard Mr Kinsella told police he had worked for the family for five to six years and met them when they were next door neighbours at a previous address. To begin with it had been paid employment cleaning ice-cream vans but then the payments stopped. Mr Kinsella said he had been asked by the family to sleep in their garage one night and keep watch because they were worried about being burgled.
But they refused to let him go, keeping him against his will and subjecting him to regular beatings which were caught on the family's own CCTV system. The offences took place at the family's home address during a six-week period between May and July last year, during which the violence escalated. David Rooke admitted false imprisonment and five counts of causing actual bodily harm. Jamie Rooke admitted affray and four counts of causing actual bodily harm, and Donna Rooke admitted one specimen count of battery.
That is the kind of punishment that NEEDS to start being dolled-out. That was one of the hardest things I have EVER watched. I felt like I was was watching a psychological thriller.....I even covered my eyes a few times, not knowing when the next attack was coming. They literally came out of nowhere with lightning-fast strikes. The victim is 34 years old and obviously had disabilities that went beyond 'learning' ones. He was held captive for 6 weeks........why did his family not worry about his whereabouts????......he seems very childlike and overly submissive in those videos......he never tries to fight back in any way.......an adult would. I couldn't decide what made me feel sicker......the way this poor vulnerable defenseless human being was tortured.....or the fact that the maximum sentence handed over to this family of evil douchebags was 6 years and 6 months..........let's just add 6 days, to make it right = 666