Dewsbury bed factory run on 'slave workforce'

Prosecutors said Kozee Sleep had employed large numbers of Hungarian nationals who were paid as little as £10 a day

Bosses at a bed-making firm knowingly employed a "slave workforce" of Hungarian nationals trafficked into the UK, a court has heard.

Staff at Kozee Sleep, which supplied retailers including John Lewis and Next, were paid as little as £10 a day.

Company owner Mohammed Rafiq and employees Mohammed Patel and Mohammed Dadhiwala have gone on trial at Leeds Crown Court accused of conspiracy to traffic individuals within the UK.

All three men deny any wrongdoing.

The court heard that an investigation was launched into Kozee Sleep, based in Dewsbury, and its subsidiary Layzee Sleep, based in Batley, after two Hungarians, Janos Orsos and Ferenc Illes, were arrested over human trafficking allegations.

The jury was told large numbers of Hungarian men were employed at both factories at a time when the business was in financial trouble.

'Financially motivated'

Prosecutor Christopher Tehrani QC said: "The prosecution submit that the three defendants were involved with Janos Orsos and his human trafficking organisation to source them cheap slave labour to work at Kozee Sleep and Layzee Sleep factories.

"The prosecution case is that the three defendants were aware of the circumstances of the Hungarian nationals who were working at these sites and went along with their exploitation as a slave workforce for their own and others' gain.

"The motivation of both Janos Orsos, Ferenc Illes and these three defendants was financial."

Mr Tehrani told jurors the Hungarian nationals were "vulnerable and/or desperate for work" and were promised "good wages, accommodation and food" if they travelled to the UK.

However, he said, they were put up in "cramped and squalid" accommodation and made to work between ten and 16-hours-a-day for five to seven days a week.

He added: "In the main, they did not receive their wages that they had been promised."

Mr Tehrani said the men "did nothing" when they discovered Mr Orsos was only paying "a fraction of each worker's wages to the worker".

Mr Rafiq, of Thorncliffe Road, Staincliffe, Mr Patel, of Carr Side Crescent, Batley, and Mr Dadhiwala, of Upper Mount Street, Batley Carr, all deny a single count of conspiracy to traffic individuals within the UK.

The trial continues.