Connors sentences upheld in Court of Appeal - Gloucestershire

From the Gloucestershire Echo

JAIL terms for Gloucestershire Travellers convicted of forced labour charges will not be extended after the Court of Appeal rejected claims their sentences were too short.

Attorney General Dominic Grieve, the Government's principal legal adviser, had asked three London judges to increase jail terms given to William Connors, 52, his sons John Connors, 30, and James Connors, 20, and son-in-law Miles Connors, 24, who lived at a Traveller site near Staverton.

He argued their sentences were 'unduly lenient', but his case was rejected by the Lord Chief Justice, Lord Judge, Mr Justice Simon and Mr Justice Irwin.

The four men, who pleaded not guilty, were jailed after being convicted of conspiracy to compel people to carry out forced labour by a jury at Bristol Crown Court in December.

Judge Michael Longman handed William Connors a six-and-a-half year jail term, John Connors a four-year term, James Connors a three-year term in a young offenders' institution and Miles Connors, a three-year term.

Breda Connors walked free after serving her two year three month sentence awaiting trial.

The family tricked around 37 homeless men, many of whom were alcoholics, into living with them on the promise of work, money and accommodation. They then made them carry out hard labour for little or no pay.

Some of the men were found living in squalid caravans at the Beggars Roost site in Staverton.

The charges related to the period between April 5 2010 and March 23 2011, when the Connors were using a number of victims to lay patios and driveways around the country.

Mr Grieve had suggested at a hearing in February that longer sentences should have been imposed to deter others from committing similar crimes.

Lawyers representing the men disagreed and told the appeal judges that the sentences imposed were not 'unduly lenient'.

Lord Judge said that the sentence in the case of James Connors reflected his youth and 'short involvement in the conspiracy, into which he effectively grew up'.

In the case of Miles Connors, his term reflected the fact that his 'personal involvement was at a relatively less culpable level than the others, for a shorter period, and that there was genuine mitigation as he sought to prevent some of the worst manifestations of a conspiracy into which he had for all practical purposes effectively married'.

He said the court had concluded that although the sentences on William and John Connors were lenient 'neither sentence was so lenient as to require interference'.