A deaf, Pakistani girl was trafficked to the UK and kept as a virtual slave in a cellar for almost 10 years by an elderly couple, a court was told.
Locked in a cellar each night, the ten-year-old was repeatedly raped and forced to carry out chores including cooking, cleaning, sewing and washing.
Ilyas Ashar, 83, and wife Tallat, 66, regularly beat the girl – dragging her by the hair if she was too slow and slapping her if the food was too hot or spicy.
The court was told that the girl was repeatedly raped and sexually abused by Ashar and stabbed in the stomach.
The girl had been brought from her home in Pakistan in 2000.
Profoundly deaf and unable to speak, she went to live with the Ashars at their Victorian house in Eccles, near Manchester.
She was kept locked at night so that she couldn’t escape, the Daily Mail reported.
She was a victim of threats and violence throughout her life from being a little girl.
Police called at the house in 2009 and found the girl – now aged around 19 – sleeping in the cellar.