AN alleged victim of modern slavery told jurors he was driven by his abusers to score drugs to keep him working on a daily basis.

Michael Joyce, 59, his sons Michael Joyce, 26,and John Joyce, 34, all from Redbridge Hollow, Oxford, as well as David Boiling, 33, of Northfield Close, Littlemore, all deny five counts alleging forced labour and modern slavery.

As their trial continued at Oxford Crown Court yesterday jurors heard from one of the alleged victims giving evidence from a live link.

He told the court: “I was taken every day to get drugs in order to keep working. I needed it to get recuperated for the next day.”

Jurors were told that the alleged victim was a heroin addict and he told the court that while he had managed his habit before meeting the Joyce's it was after he got involved that it became worse.

He said: "I may have had a habit but it was a not over-stretching my means." He went on to deny assertions from defence barristers that he had a 'raging' drugs habit and was spending 'huge' amounts of money on heroin before he met the Joyce's.

Asked later what would happen if the men had come to collect him for work in the morning and he was not there he said they would target his partner.

He said: “They would turn up at my girlfriends house, banging the door, pulling the handle, asking my girlfriend where I was and saying if she could not contact me there would be trouble for me and possibly for her.”

Earlier in the trial prosecutors said that Michael Joyce senior was known as the ‘boss man’ with Michael junior and John Joyce the ‘enforcers’ with David Boiling a trusted insider.

Prosecutors allege that both victims were forced into servitude at a Travellers site at Redbridge Hollow, where the Joyce’s live.

It was here, jurors were told, that they were forced into carrying out manual labour, including the construction of a “pub” at the site.

During cross examination yesterday, the court heard that on one occasion while at a fish and chips shopthe first alleged victim had stolen a charity box from the counter before fleeing the scene.

Defence barristers put to him that John Joyce, who was with him at the time, had been angry at what he had done and had 'had a go' at him for doing it, telling him to put it back.

He stressed that Joyce had only been angry 'because he had got caught'.

At one point during cross-examination the alleged victim told the court he had been locked in a shed when the police came to the site and said: "Michael said to get in the shed, John [Joyce] made sure I was in the shed."

The men deny all five charges and the trial continues