Family jailed for trafficking and enslaving two women

Women were beaten and forced to hand over money they made from prostitution while staying with family of four in Bolton

A family of four have been jailed for trafficking two women, keeping them as slaves and spending their earnings from prostitution on drugs and in casinos.

Ferenc Dardai Jr, 22, described in court as the “prime mover” in the enterprise, which also involved his parents and younger brother, was sentenced to six years.

The judge at Bolton crown court adjourned the issuing of what will be the first slavery and trafficking prevention order to a later date.

Police rescued the women from the family’s home in Bolton on 27 March this year. Dardai and his parents, Ferenc Dardai Sr and Melania Kiraly, both 42, each pleaded guilty to two counts of sexual exploitation, and his brother Daniel Dardai, 19, admitted one count.

The court was told that Dardai Jr set up profiles for the two women on adult websites, and when clients called he and his father would tell the women what to say. The victims, aged 30 and 21, were forced to see up to five clients a day and worked “whenever the phone rang”.

One of the women, who had travelled to the UK from Hungary a year ago, said she was treated like a slave while living with the family, who are also from Hungary. The court heard that they made her eat with separate cutlery “so they would not catch any infection”, and she was given only bread, butter and salami, sometimes only once a day.

The court was told that the women were beaten daily by Dardai Jr and his mother and were forced to hand over the money they made, which was about £150 a day. One was told she could not leave until she earned a certain amount of money.

One of the victims said Dardai Jr had on occasions strangled her for “not smiling enough for clients” and she had fainted after one beating. 

Kiraly was sentenced to four years and four months for her part, plus an extra two months to run consecutively after pleading guilty to conspiracy to commit a sham marriage. 

Dardai Sr, who claimed in court that he had been directed by his sons, was jailed for four years. Daniel Dardai received three years in a young offenders institute.

The judge, Peter Davies, said: “It is noteworthy that the control and exploitation exerted over both victims by these defendants changed the character of the life they expected in the UK. They were threatened with destitution and violence. This was a frightful ordeal. There was no reward, no decency. Instead they entered a life characterised by abuse and fear.”

He said one of the women had been unable to return home and was effectively living “under the radar”, having had her travel documents taken away from her by someone unknown.

DI Neil Blackwood, of Greater Manchester police, said the women had been treated in a barbaric way.

“These women were a commodity to these offenders; they served no other purpose than to earn money to fund a lifestyle of drugs and gambling,” he said. “Like so many victims of modern slavery, these women were ultimately controlled by violence and, equally, by fear. Fear of assault, fear of sexual abuse and fear for their children’s wellbeing, whose welfare they held above all other concerns.”