SOURCES trusted by the Echo, settled residents who have grown up alongside travellers in Basildon, told how dossers can be great for touting for work.

One said: "Most people spot a traveller knocking at their door a mile off.

"Give a tramp with an English accent a shave and a suit and they are as good as any salesman.

"They can also read for the traveller if the family is illiterate." Sources also said the practice of recruiting workers from the street had gone on for years, and there were those who were content.

One source from Crays Hill said: "Some dossers enjoy their lives.

"If a tramp has to do a bit of work for food and a roof over their head, then what's the problem?

"Some have lived with travellers for so long, they almost become part of the family."

The source said they were usually given shabby caravans, away from the family.

Another source said the "boss" may even grow attached to his dossers.

He said: "It's in the same way you grow attached to a dog, but know full well it's down the pecking order.

"One traveller was so fond of a dosser, he employed a private eye to track him down after he left."

A retired senior Essex police officer told how a team of dossers during was discovered during an armed police raid in 2005. The officer, who did not want to be named, said the dossers at the Cranfield Park Road site, Wickford, appeared to be enjoying their lives.

He said: "Because there was no evidence of mistreatment, it was not really a police matter.

"They said they were well treated and had cash to spend.There were no claims of mistreatment."

However, some much more sinister accounts have been revealed.