A factory owner who employed large numbers of Hungarians as a “slave workforce” in a Kirklees bed-making firm which supplied retailers like John Lewis, Next and Dunelm Mill has been found guilty of people trafficking.

Mohammed Rafiq was found guilty of conspiracy to traffic at Leeds Crown Court, officials confirmed, and will be sentenced next month.

A jury was told how an investigation into Kozee Sleep, based in Dewsbury, and its subsidiary Layzee Sleep, based in Batley, began after two Hungarians, Janos Orsos and Ferenc Illes, were arrested over human trafficking allegations.

Large numbers of Hungarian men were employed at Rafiq’s Kozee Sleep factory, supplied to them by Orsos.

Prosecutor Christopher Tehrani QC said Rafiq knew Orsos’s organisation would source him “cheap slave labour to work at Kozee Sleep and Layzee Sleep factories”.

READ MORE:

READ MORE:

Mr Tehrani said Rafiq was “aware of the circumstances of the Hungarian nationals who were working at these sites and went along with their exploitation as a slave workforce”.

“The prosecution submits that this course of offending demonstrates a persistent campaign of exploitation involving many Hungarian men over a prolonged period of time.”

Rafiq, 60, of Thorncliffe Road, Staincliffe, Batley, denied a single count of conspiracy to traffic individuals within the UK.

The court said he will be sentenced on February 12.