Compulsory Labour Trial Opens In Cardiff

A trial's heard a vulnerable missing man was forced to work 15-hour days for no pay for 13 years in Newport.

Darrell Simester was found living in squalid living conditions on Cariad Farm in Marshfield.

Cardiff Crown Court was told he'd slept in a rat-infested shed and the 44-year-old regularly washed himself in an animal's feeding trough.

Doctors later found him in poor health - with a chest infection, a hernia and badly calloused feet.

Father and son Daniel Doran, 67, and David Dan Doran, 42, both deny a charge of forcing someone to carry out compulsory labour.

But Mr Hipkin said there could little doubt that Mr Simester was anything but a free man.

The will have to decide whether he remained at the farm as a volunteer because he preferred life there, or whether he was coerced to stay while under some form of threat.