AVON and Somerset Police estimate that 90 per cent of human trafficking and modern slavery victims in the region remain unknown to law enforcement. 

Chief Constable Sarah Crew said that these crimes are difficult to detect as victims are often controlled by others and reluctant to seek help due to fears of deportation or mistrust of authorities. Key areas of concern include industries such as car washes, nail bars, care homes, and agriculture.

Police and crime commissioner Clare Moody told Chief Constable Crew at their monthly Police Question Time meeting: “Victims of modern slavery and human trafficking are some of the most vulnerable people in our society.

“In order to be able to intervene in this criminality you have to be able to identify it’s happening

“Your own threat assessment estimates that only 10 per cent of the victims of this crime are known to Avon & Somerset Police.”

Reading a question to the constabulary’s top officer from LoveWell, a Bristol organisation that supports female survivors of trafficking and exploitation by employing them to make luxury skincare and spa products which are sold to raise money to support them, Ms Moody asked: “How confident are you in your frontline officers being able to identify survivors of trafficking and to know what specialist support services are available to them?”

Chief Constable Crew replied: “This is a topic I’m particularly passionate about.

“With, Bristol charity Unseen, I set up the first anti-slavery partnership in Bristol over a decade ago and that has now expanded force-wide and across the region.

“From that I really know the challenges of identifying survivors and it can be really difficult because this type of exploitation can take many forms but it also exploits the most vulnerable in the community who may often be and often are in fear for themselves, for their families, fear of things like deportation but also fear of public authorities.

“So it’s really important that we’re able to spot the signs.

“I am confident, because we’ve worked hard on that over all of those years, that my officers and staff do know the signs and also know what to do if they see those signs, what specialists they can call upon and what pathways exist to be able to deal with that problem.”

She said the anti-slavery partnership was chaired by a detective chief inspector and involved organisations including all the local authorities, the diocese, HMRC and Business West to ensure frontline professionals identified the signs of trafficking.

The chief constable said information was shared among partnerships with other forces, the regional organised crime unit, the National Crime Agency, immigration, the Gangmasters and Labour Abuse Authority and non-government organisations such as Unseen to identify areas of concern and carry out weeks or fortnights of action with their collective powers and expertise.

Chief Constable Crew said: “People won’t often come to the police station and say ‘I’m a victim’, we have to go out there looking and uncovering these things using the different skills and powers that we’ve got.”

She said recent successes for the force included the jailing of Tai Makessa, 24, of Hepburn Road, St Pauls, Bristol, for three years and nine months at Bristol Crown Court in April for offences including being involved in trafficking teenage children from Luton to the South West to deal class A drugs.

In a separate case, Solomon Brown, then 23, of Snow Hill, Bath, was sent to prison for six-and-a-half years by a Bath Crown Court judge in February 2023 for trafficking and forcing a 15-year-old to sell drugs. 

The chief constable told Police Question Time on Monday, October 14, that members of the public could spot signs of modern slavery, such as physical or psychological abuse, malnourishment, appearing unkempt, withdrawn or neglected and having untreated injuries.

She said: “They also may look isolated in some way.

“They may not be allowed to travel on their own, they may seem under the control of someone else or under the influence of other people.

“They would be unwilling to interact and may appear unfamiliar with their surroundings, as they are moved around a lot.

“They may be living and working at the same address – we see that with domestic servitude.

“They may have few or no personal effects, so identity documents will have been taken away from them to control their movement, and they may be wearing the same clothes day in, day out.

“They may also move around at unusual times of day, so they may be taken somewhere early in the morning and brought back late at night, and they may be very reluctant to seek help, they may try to avoid eye contact, they might seem frightened or hesitant to talk to strangers, they may fear law enforcement, and they may not know who to trust or where to get help.”

She said anyone who spotted these signs could report them to the police or contact the confidential UK modern slavery and exploitation helpline on 08000 121700 or through its website https://www.aspartnership.org.uk/