British woman denies enslaving girls

[Flashermac]

A British woman has denied enslaving three girls and forcing them to work for up to 20 hours a day in horrific conditions.

 

Mercedes Farquharson, 63, is alleged to have banned the girls, who were not her natural children, from going to school or having friends.

 

Charges said she forced them to perform physical labour in harsh conditions at her house in Monroe, North Carolina, in the United States.

 

They had been forced to work or face beatings from as young as seven, prosecutors said.

 

They allege the girls were also made to clean up after dozens of animals including chickens, dogs and sheep.

 

One of girls was Farquharson's adopted daughter, while the other two were taken from Southall, west London, in the 1990s while their real mother was struggling with her marriage.

 

The girls were rescued in 2005 at the ages of 15, 18 and 22 following complaints from neighbours of suspicious activity at the house.

 

In 2006, Farquharson was charged with two counts of child abuse and three of involuntary servitude.

 

But she disappeared, fleeing the US a day after investigators took her 15-year-old adopted daughter away.

 

Investigators initially thought she was in Spain, but she was located in Bulgaria in July and is now behind bars in North Carolina awaiting trial.

 

 

 

Not Pattaya this time