HARRISON: ACCUSED COUNCIL WORKER WAS HELPING TEENAGE ‘SEX SLAVES’
A council worker accused of smuggling two teenage sex slaves after they were threatened with death in a voodoo-style ceremony claimed today (tues) he was just helping them.
Anthony Harrison, 32, is said to have helped traffic two Nigerian girls to Spain and Greece after both had been subjected to rituals from the black magic religion of Juju in Africa.
A 16-year-old girl, who cannot be named for legal reasons, claims she was stripped naked, cut all over her body with razors and locked in a coffin for hours.
Another ceremony saw her forced to drink blood while yet another involved eating a chicken’s heart.
She was told the combined effect of the rituals had cast a spell that would kill her unless she obeyed her new masters, Woolwich Crown Court has heard.
A second girl, aged 14, also underwent a series of bizarre rituals before being shipped to the UK.
Both teenagers were allegedly raped in 2009 by Harrison, who worked for Newham Council under the name Charles Pepple, before being packed off to Spain and Greece to work in the sex industry.
It is claimed he was a ‘key player’ in a Nigerian people smuggling gang which subjected children to Juju rites and forced them into prostitution.
Giving evidence today (TUE), Harrison claimed he was helping the two girls while they were in the UK as a favour to a friend, Glory John, who had helped him when he first arrived in the country in 2003.
He told the jury he had no idea the two girls were victims of the international people smuggling trade and denied raping either girl or having held them against their will.
He was asked by prosecutor Riel Karmy-Jones if he had been conned.
She said: ‘According to you you have been conned by your good friend Glory John?’
Harrison replied: ‘Yes.’
Ms Karmy-Jones: ‘And you have been conned by these two girls?’
Harrison: ‘Yes.’
‘You are a victim of a big con?’ asked Ms Karmy-Jones.
‘That’s what it looks like to me,’ he said.
Earlier Harrison told the jury how he met the first girl in the late spring of 2009..
He said: ‘It was about June 14 and my friend Glory John called me from Nigeria.
‘He said his younger sister was in the country and she was having accommodation problems and could I help her.’
He said he spoke to the girl later that day and she had told him she was having difficulties with her flat mate.
He met the girl the following day at East Ham station and took her to his flat.
Harrison said he had asked his girlfriend to put the girl up at her flat, but she had refused.
His barrister, Mark Smith, then asked him: ‘How did you feel about being asked to help this young girl?’
He answered: ‘Because of what Glory John had done for me when I had just come [to the UK] and how he had helped me with accommodation and a job, and when he told me his younger sister was here and she was sad, I thought I would try and see how I could help out.’
Harrison told the court that while the girl had stayed with him she had introduced him to a man and a woman in Spain who she was talking to via the internet.
He said the girl claimed the couple were her older brother and his new wife.
‘She said she wanted to go to Spain to meet her brother and his wife,’ he said.
‘I called her brother, Glory John, and he said if she is happy to go to Spain then please let her go and buy a ticket for her.’
Harrison said he bought a ticket for the girl using a fake credit card he had acquired under the name of a previous tenant at his home address and that she flew out to Spain few days later.
Mr Smith askedd: ‘Did you spend any nights at your home in the same room as her or not?’
‘No,’ he said.
‘Did you have sex with her?’ asked Mr Smith.
‘No,’ he replied
‘Did you force her to work as a prostitute?’ Mr Smith asked.
‘No, never,’ he said.
Mr Smith asked: ‘Did you hold her [at you flat] against her will?’
Harrison replied: ‘No’.
Mr Smith: ‘Did she give any indication of wanting to leave [your flat]?’
Harrison: ‘Yes. The indication she gave was that she wanted to go to Spain to see her auntie.’
Mr Smith: ‘Did you suspect or know that you may have participated in trafficking a prostitute out of this country?’
Harrison: ‘No. When she came she did not know anything about trafficking or being a prostitute. She was happy.
‘She did not indicate anything to me to suspect she was being trafficked or anything,’
Harrison told jurors the second girl had also been put in touch with him by Glory John.
He said he had offered to put a roof over her head, but that after some time she had said she wanted to go to Greece where she had family.
He said: ‘Glory John called me and said there was his niece in this country for a long time and she wanted to go to Greece.
‘He reminded me how when I came here how I was begging him for help.
‘So he said I should buy the ticket for her to Greece.’
Harrison went on to deny a series of allegations, including claims he had forced the girl to work as a prostitute from the spare room of his home address.
He was arrested later that year and quizzed by police over his involvement with the two girls.
He told the jury: ‘When I was arrested the police told me I had been charged with trafficking.
‘I was shocked.
‘I did not know anything about any trafficking.’
He told jurors he had lied to police initially about his involvement with the girls because he had been ‘scared’ about having used a false credit card.
Mr Smith asked him: ‘Were you trying to conceal what you knew to be your guilt of trafficking these girls for sexual exploitation?’
Harrison answered: ‘No.’
He added that as a father the thought of forcing himself on either girl would have left him feeling like a ‘monster’.
Harrison, of (81) Albert Square, Stratford, east London, denies two counts of conspiracy to traffic people into the UK for sexual exploitation, two of conspiracy to traffick out of the UK for sexual exploitation, two counts of false imprisonment, two of rape and four of conspiracy to facilitate breaches of immigration law.
The court heard he has admitted five counts of fraud by using false names to obtain employment, credit cards and telephones.
The trial continues.
ENDS
