Modern slavery and human trafficking are the fastest tactic towards how people are enslaved and a significant source of income for organised crime groups. Human Trafficking is a multi-billion-dollar trade that exploits people in many various ways, from sex trafficking, modern slavery, domestic servitude, and organ trade. The aim of this thesis is to understand modern slavery and human trafficking within the UK by exploring local issues that are focused upon the Merseyside area of the UK and the national issues through the lens of key figures throughout UK policing agencies. Following a review of the research literature it becomes clear that there is a severe lack of knowledge around the scale of the problem of modern slavery and human trafficking both nationally and internationally. To obtain a clear picture of what the issues are nationally police data was accessed and analysed to establish the nature of this type of offence within the Force area of Merseyside. On analysing this data, a number of key findings emerged. Labour is the most prevalent type of “quintessential” modern slavery offences and is dominated by Vietnamese nationals being forced to work in Cannabis cultivation, which may warrant further attention (e.g., policy, proactive focus). This extends to non-county lines Child Criminal Exploitation, as it also features a significant number of Vietnam nationals forced into cannabis cultivation (i.e., the offenders do not discriminate by age in this case).Sexual exploitation is small by volume but large in terms of harm/threat, especially considering the likelihood of under-reporting/detection (i.e., the “Ostensible” category). This type of modern slavery, more than any other, presents a very consistent picture in terms of victim profiles (i.e., Albanian and Romanian females) and offender MOs (i.e., Brothels, or Escorts that may not be particularly police-cooperative); which may present opportunities for the development of more focused strategies to tackle this particular type of crime. However, in order to understand the offence in more detail, one voice that is always missing within the academic literature is that of senior decision makers that have human trafficking and modern slavery within their portfolio of work, therefore a number of senior individuals with policing and the National Crime Agency (NCA) were interviewed to get an understanding of the insights they have on the phenomenon of human trafficking and modern slavery. In-depth thematic analysis of their interviews revealed six prominent themes; they were as follows.1. Intelligence & Investigative gaps2. Victim – Offending blurring and Section 45 misuse3. Multi-agency Collaboration and Strategic Interventions4. Legislative Limitations and Prosecution Challenges5. Public Perception and Demand-Driven Exploitation6. Socio-Political Disruption and Organisational Impact. The insights gathered from this are a useful reference point to be able to capture what the current issues are nationally from individuals who have direct responsibility for human trafficking and modern slavery within the UK. The PhD brings together these issues within a framework of both quantitative and qualitative data, shining a light on a under reported area where data is lacking within academic research studies. The current research calls for further examination of police data more widely including both within specific locations to capture regional contextual variations but also nationally and internationally by bringing together partners across the international community to feed into the analytical process. It is only through careful deliberate analysis of hard to get and hard to access data can we really start to get an understanding of the issues of human trafficking and modern slavery and therefore begin to challenge this serious and complex form of criminality.