A COUPLE syphoned money from the bank account of a mentally-impaired man while they holidayed in Mexico, Oxford Crown Court heard yesterday.

The incident was just the tip of the iceberg in a two-year scam that saw Daniel Collins treated like a “servant” while being deprived of an estimated £20,950 in benefits and wages.

Paul Joyce and Helen Cash were sentenced yesterday for charges of forced labour and fraud in a case that Judge Ian Pringle said was “staggering” to have occurred in modern-day Britain.

The husband and wife, who have three children, lured Mr Collins into their lives by promising him work in return for a place to stay and regular meals.

Then they took his bank card, birth certificate and benefits and forced him to do legal and illegal work over 22 months.

Joyce’s brother Michael also admitted one charge of forced compulsory labour between January 2012 and November 2013, while Ifran Iqbal admitted fraudulently having some of Mr Collins’s benefits paid into his account.

It was only when Mr Collins secretly arranged with police to carry out a ‘spoof’ arrest on him at Redbridge Hollow caravan site in South Oxford in November 2013 that he gave a full statement against the four.

That statement was part of the evidence that led police to carry out anti-slavery raids at the site off Old Abingdon Road in March 2014.

Paul Joyce, 33, now of Ver Meadows caravan site, St Albans, Hertfordshire, was sentenced to a total of 34 months in prison after pleading guilty to two counts of forced labour, three counts of fraud and one count of common assault.

Cash, 31, of the same address, was given a two-year suspended sentence for one count of forced labour and three of fraud.

Michael Joyce, 25, of Redbridge Hollow, was given a two-year suspended sentence. Iqbal, 29, of Millfield Walk, Hemel Hempstead, was ordered to carry out 120 hours work.

Sentencing the group, Mr Pringle said: “You will say ‘he got evening meals, something to eat at lunchtime and a roof over his head’ – so what?

“You treated him as if he were your servant and forced him to work for you for free.

“It is staggering to think in 2015 of this sort of behaviour continuing in this country.”

Prosecution barrister Rachel Drake told the court how Mr Collins had tried to escape numerous times and, on one occasion, suffered retribution.

In November 2012, he stole Paul Joyce’s car and drove towards London and was arrested on the way for driving without a licence.

After he was released from custody he hid at a friend’s house, but Paul Joyce found him and beat him up so badly his body was covered in bruises, Ms Drake said.

She told the court the whole affair started when Mr Collins was thrown out of his uncle’s house and went to visit his brother who lived and worked at Redbridge Hollow.

Michael Joyce arranged for him to stay with his brother and his wife in Hertfordshire, who promised they could give him leafleting work for which he would be paid.

Within weeks, Ms Drake said Mr Collins, who she described as having a “significant impairment of intellectual function”, was forced to start shoplifting.

In summer 2013, Paul Joyce and Cash moved to Redbridge Hollow, with Mr Collins in tow.

Paul Joyce’s defence barrister Craig Rush said his client recognised he had “crossed a line” into exploitation.

Michael Joyce’s barrister Shauna Ritchie said he had written a letter to the judge expressing his remorse and Alan Compton, representing Cash, said she had been responsible for making Mr Collins’s life more bearable by cooking him meals.