Thug, 61, who forced three vulnerable workers into slave labour on traveller site

A thug who forced vulnerable workers into slave labour on a travellers’ site after threatening them with debt has been jailed for five years.

Michael Joyce, 61, subjected three people to a brutal and cruel regime of forced labour in Redbridge, Oxforford, between April 2016 to January 2018.

Joyce targeted two vulnerable men and a woman aged between 29 and 50 into a life where they were forced to work and pay back a debt, a judge heard.   

Oxford Crown Court heard that Joyce would loan the victims £50 but told them it had to be paid back in double within the week – the phrase he used was ‘double bubble.’

If the victim could not pay back his money, Joyce would double the fee again in a ‘vice-like grip’ he had on thier lives for many months, a court heard.

He was sentenced to five years imprisonment for five offences of forced labour, human trafficking and illegal money lending after a jury unanimously convicted him of the crimes. 

Kim Preston, prosecuting, read a statement from Paul West, a victim who had was forced to ‘hand over his wages’ to Joyce and now suffers ‘paranoia’ following the ordeal. 

The victim, who was diagnosed as bipolar, ‘does not feel safe’ and is worried for his family after Joyce’s associates paid a visit to his sister and disabled brother looking for him. 

The statement read:  ‘Having been diagnosed with bipolar, I have been in a fragile mental state and I still do not feel safe. I get worried whenever I see a white van on the street because that is what Joyce and his associates drove.

Judge Ian Pringle QC said that Mr West was a man with mental health problems and a regular drug user. 

‘He wasn’t an addict but was on his way. Your part in his life did not help in avoiding that course’, he said. 

‘When he could not pay you, you suggested that he work for you until the debt was paid off. You used to tell him that he owed you thousands and you would tell him when he had paid it off’.

Another victim, Paul Gilding was enslaved at the hands of Joyce and were having money taken from him and his partner and was forced to work at the traveller site for ‘no or little money against his will.’  

A judge sitting at Oxford Crown Court heard how both men had to flee their home immediately, leaving behind their friends, family and possessions out of fear of the repercussions of reporting the slavery to the police.  

Joyce trapped his victims in the city of Oxford, and on the morning of June 2018, arrest warrants were dramatically executed across the city.  

He was convicted by unanimous verdict of requiring a person to perform forced labour, carrying on a regulated activity when not an authorised person and arranging or facilitating travel of another person with a view to exploitation.

He had denied the charges but was finally convicted following a trial lasting 14 days.

Joyce, of Redbridge Hollow in Oxford, was smiling from the dock and gripping his walking stick as he was sentenced to a five year concurrent prison sentence and made the subject to a 10-year slavery and trafficking prevention order along with a victim surcharge.

Speaking on the steps of the court following the sentencing, Detective Inspector Ali Driver said: ‘Michael Joyce has been sentenced for a number of serious offences in relation to modern slavery and illegal money lending.

‘These modern slavery convictions are the first of their kind using new legislation in the Thames Valley.

‘Forced labour and modern slavery is absolutely abhorrent, it is the exploitation of the most vulnerable in our society and we will always strive to bring offenders such as Joyce to justice.’