Paris woman kept 'slave' since 1969

The crime was perpetrated in a plush suburb of Paris

By James Coomarasamy in Paris

A court in Versailles has given a French woman a one-year suspended sentence for keeping an unpaid slave in a garden shed for more than 30 years.

Francoise Saunier, 76, who had kept the woman in a state of total destitution, has been ordered to give her captive FF 150,000 ($23,000) in compensation.

The court heard how Saunier had kept Anne-Pierrette Drossard in a shed without water or electricity at the house in the plush Paris suburb of Chatou since 1969.

For the first year of this existence, Miss Drossard had been given money for doing domestic chores, but was afterwards held as an unpaid and unseen slave.

Chance discovery

Her mistress told her to avoid the neighbours and not to come out when there were guests.

Police found the 65-year-old woman by chance in January 2000 when they were called to investigate reports of an intruder at the house.

Officers said she had been in a state of total destitution.

In court Saunier claimed to have "taken pity" on the woman she had kept as a virtual prisoner for three decades and argued that she had always fed her.