A MOTHER and her two sons who brought a man to Bolton and kept him enslaved for five years have been jailed.

The Siwak family brought 42-year-old Stanislaw Szydlowski to the town from his home in Poland in September 2010 with the promise of work.

But Bolton Crown Court heard how, instead, they took his passport and travel documents off him and kept all the wages he earned working for a logistics firm and then on construction sites.

Jaime Hamilton, prosecuting, said that the patriarch of the family and person behind the plan was the father, Czeslaw Pamula, who involved his 48-year-old wife, Rozalia Siwak and sons Krystian and Damian Siwak in the scheme.

Rozalia booked the aeroplane tickets to bring Mr Szydlowski to the UK, with 25-year-old Krystian accompanying him on the flight.

The court heard that Mr Szydlowski was forced to work 12 hour days, seven days a weeks for the family and was given no pay, but was provided with food and rewarded with cider.

When the family decided he wasn't working hard enough Pamula and his sons beat him.

Mr Szydlowski slept in the family's living room at their homes in Greenland Road, Great Lever and then Spa Road.

After Pamula suffered heart attacks and strokes, which left him paralysed, Krystian took control of the family and Mr Szydlowski was moved into a flat where up to 10 other East Europeans were living, including 21-year-old Damian Siwak.

The forced labour continued and Mr Hamilton said Mr Szydlowski ran away several times, but, unable to speak English and with no documents, he had to resort to shoplifting to survive.

"He was always reluctant to go back to the Siwaks but, in reality, it was the only place he had to go," said Mr Hamilton.

The Siwaks' crimes came to light when Mr Szydlowski fell whilst plastering a ceiling and was taken to hospital with an injured leg.

Damian told him not to mention his circumstances, but the truth came out when he became upset and revealed what was happening to medical staff and they contacted police.

Mr Hamilton told the court: "It is impossible to quantify the extent to which they (the Siwaks) benefited from the enforced labour performed by the complainant."

Nicola Gatto, defending Rozalia, said the mother-of-six had met her husband in Poland when she was 20 and they had a Romany marriage.

"His word was very much the law and she took part in this enterprise very much under his direction," she said.

Andrew Costello, for Krystian and Colin Buckle, defending Damian, also argued that the men's father had been the dominant member of the family and they had acted out of respect for him.

Pamula was too ill to be arrested for the crime, but his wife and two sons, all of Gibraltar Street, Deane, pleaded guilty to holding Mr Szydlowski in slavery or servitude for forced labour. Additionally, Rozalia and Krystian admitted facilitating his entry into the UK intending to exploit him.

Jailing the family, Judge Graeme Smith stressed that such crimes represent a "deliberate degrading of a fellow human being, requiring substantial sentences."

The family and their supporters in the public gallery sobbed and shouted out as Krystian Siwak was imprisoned for 40 months and his brother and mother were each jailed for 27 months.