The head of a family of Irish travellers, who is accused of holding vulnerable men in captivity and making them work for nothing, told a jury they were free to come and go anytime they wanted.
Tommy Connors Snr was asked by his barrister Lewis Power QC “Did you ever force anyone to work?”
The 53-year-old, who is on trial with three of his sons, replied “I never did.”
The barrister then asked “Or compel anyone to remain on the site through fear of retribution?”
Mr Connors answered “No, I never made anyone stay on the site that didn’t want to.”
The father was giving evidence at Luton Crown Court on Thursday where he is on trial along with his three sons, Tommy Connors Jnr , 27, James, 25 and Patrick, 21.
The four defendants face charges of conspiracy to hold a person in servitude and three of conspiracy to require a person to perform forced labour.
Following legal submissions, Tommy Connors Junior was formally acquitted on Thursday of one charge of conspiracy to hold a person in servitude and one charge of conspiracy to require a person to perform forced labour. He remains on trial facing further conspiracy charges.
The offences are alleged to have taken place between 6 April 6, 2010 and September 11, 2011 and involved four victims. who cannot be named for legal reasons.
The father and his sons are accused of making large amounts of money by holding vulnerable men in captivity and making them work for nothing.
Over 15 years, the four are said to have recruited men from homeless centres, soup kitchens and off the street, with the offer of paid work, food and accommodation.
But the jury of six women and six men were told the men were made to carry out daily physical labour for the family’s block paving business and were threatened with violence if they asked for wages or tried to leave their ‘Spartan’ accommodation at Green Acres Caravan Site at Little Billington, near Leighton Buzzard.
The trial has heard how, in September 2011,the police raided the site, where they found 13 workers. They ranged from those who had been recruited just the night before, to men who had been working for the Connors family for 10 years.
The jury was told that Tommy Connors Senior, who was also referred to as ‘Pa’ or ‘Lyncham,’ was “the main man” and “the boss of everyone”.
In the witness box on Thursday, Mr Connors Snr was asked about one of the alleged victims and said “I told him if he came with me I would give him a day’s work. I said: ‘Try it for a month and see if you like it’.”
Mr Connors was then shown a photograph of a grave and headstone for another man who had once worked for him.
He said he had got on well with the man who had no family and after his death he had paid for the grave and headstone himself.
The father said that men who worked for him would live on travellers sites.
If any had wanted to leave he said they could at any time and said it was “no problem”.
Asked if he had threatened any of them, Mr Connors said: “No-one was held against their will.”
Asked if he had given money to the worker he recruited with the suggestion that he try it for a month, Mr Connors said: “I gave him money, yeah and a very, very good friendship. He had loads of food and he could have come and gone when he wanted.”
Asked about another alleged victim, Mr Connors said he met him outside a fish and chip shop in Stoke-on-Trent and offered him a job block paving.
“I gave him a roof over his head. I would give him £20 or £30 here and there.”
Mr Connors said one night when the man suffered an asthma attack he drove him to the Luton and Dunstable Hospital.
He denied ever forcing him to work or threatening him.
Asked about a third victim, Mr Connors recalled how they would talk together about football.
“I never forced any of them to work or kept them against their will,” he said.
Case proceeding