Last Thursday in the NSW District Court Trevor Frank McIvor and his Thai wife Ann Kanokporn Tanuchit, owners of Marilyn's Adult Services, (formerly known as Marilyn's Spa and Sauna) in Ware Street, Fairfield, were each convicted of 16 offences of possess and exercise ownership over a slave.

The charges included causing a person to enter and remain in sexual servitude, taking and detaining a person with intent to obtain financial advantage, causing another person to enter into debt bondage, and conducting a business involving sexual servitude and intentionally possessing a slave.

The pair were arrested on June 2, 2006, after the Australian Federal Police, NSW Police and Immigration Department officers raided the couple's brothel finding four females from Thailand.

Police allege that the Thai women, aged 27 to 44, were found cowering under furniture in an unlit, locked room with no door handles.

Police alleged the women were forced into prostitution and held against their will between May 19 and June 2, 2006.

The women were given new names such as Mickey, Michelle, Yoko and Suzie, after their passports were taken from them.

Each alleged that after two hours' sleep after arriving in Sydney they were put to work as prostitutes six days a week to pay back a $45,000 debt that each was told was the price for a tourist visa.

They were not allowed to go to the corner shop alone or make phone calls. Their one day off was used to earn money in the brothel to spend on themselves, but the women used to send money home to their families.

A receptionist at the brothel told the Champion the couple would not be back to run the business and gave no other details.

Judge Ken Taylor will sentence the couple next month.

There have been only four previous slavery trials in Australia, with three acquittals. The fourth was eventually overturned on appeal.