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| Cellar slave girl: Salford couple must pay victim £100k | Cellar slave girl: Salford couple must pay victim £100k |
| (about 1 hour later) | |
| A millionaire couple who kept a girl from Pakistan as a slave in their Salford home have been ordered to pay her £100,000 in compensation. | A millionaire couple who kept a girl from Pakistan as a slave in their Salford home have been ordered to pay her £100,000 in compensation. |
| Ilyas and Tallat Ashar were jailed last October after the girl was found in their cellar in 2009. | Ilyas and Tallat Ashar were jailed last October after the girl was found in their cellar in 2009. |
| Now in her 20s, the woman, who is deaf, was repeatedly raped and forced to work at the family's many properties. | Now in her 20s, the woman, who is deaf, was repeatedly raped and forced to work at the family's many properties. |
| Manchester Crown Court ruled the couple must also repay more than £40,000 of benefits falsely claimed in her name. | Manchester Crown Court ruled the couple must also repay more than £40,000 of benefits falsely claimed in her name. |
| It is believed to be the first time the Proceeds of Crime Act has been used in a case of modern slavery. | |
| The Ashars must also pay £321,000 towards the cost of their court trials. | |
| Money laundering | |
| Now in her 20s, the victim, who cannot be named, is believed to have been as young as 10 when she was trafficked into the UK. | |
| She was found sleeping in a cot bed in the Ashars' cellar by trading standards staff, who were investigating allegations of money laundering. | |
| Police said the victim's details were used on bank accounts linked to the couple. | |
| But when officers tried to speak to her at the house, they realised she was incapable of communication and moved her to a place of safety. | |
| Police said she could not read or write and accepted the benefit fraud was carried out by the Ashars. | |
| The victim had to learn a form of sign language to give evidence at the trial last year, when her progress was compared to "a butterfly coming out of a chrysalis". | |
| She is now living independently and has improved her sign language skills, said police. |