Of those nine, one man has been released without charge.

The other eight have all been released on police bail pending further inquiries.

They are a 22-year-old man from Kettering, a 48-year-old man from Kettering, a 24-year-old woman from Coventry, a 22-year-old male from Kettering, a 44-year-old female from Kettering, a 50-year-old male from Kettering, a 25-year-old male from Kettering and a 48-year-old male from Kettering.

In the biggest ever operation of its kind in the UK, officers identified 12 flats, homes and commercial properties in Kettering where most of the victims had been living in cramped and overcrowded conditions.

Now the painstaking work of interviewing the workers – who are mostly Eastern European men and aged between 15 and 67 – is under way to find out how they became virtual prisoners in this country after they were rescued from a farm in South Lincolnshire.

Two hundred staff from nine organisations across the East Midlands took part in the secret six-month investigation which culminated in yesterday's operation.


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