Our thanks to Nigel for this. He writes:
Though the use of slavery legislation is unusual, such cases are not uncommon, you may recall the cases of Professor Stephen Hawking and Eddie Kidd. More common are cases where mothers use their adult disabled son or daughter as an income generator, using what can be quite substantial benefits to fund their party lifestyle rather than the care the benefits are given for.
From experience, it is very difficult to arrange such “extractions” because the police and courts are very reluctant to be seen as going against “Mum”, it being such a sacred status in our society. So generally you’ll find every social service dept. has a number of these situations it’s monitoring and trying to get the support of family members and gather evidence. In a couple of instances we were aided by one of the parade of “boyfriends” such “Mums” typically have who had a conscience.
Of course most parents are supportive and caring of their adult diisabled offspring but I’m afraid this sort of abuse is far mre common than people may think. Really aided by the stereotype of women, especially mothers being uniformly saintly.
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