The shocking case that had shaken public opinion for months ended with a sentence described as “exemplary” by the British media: a woman, mother of ten children, was convicted on charges of having kept a vulnerable girl locked up for 25 years , forced to live as a “domestic slave” in a squalid farmhouse in the west of England .
The defendant, Amanda Wixon, 56, had already been found guilty in January at Gloucester Crown Court of kidnapping and enslavement. She was sentenced to 13 years in prison today by Judge Ian Lawrie , who, in his ruling, emphasized the cruelty and "severity" of the abuse committed in her "house of horrors": a hovel in the Gloucestershire countryside .
The victim , who in her testimony always referred to her tormentor as “The Witch,” was just a teenager – with psychological and learning problems and social marginalization – when she was effectively imprisoned by Amanda Wixon .
Over the years, as emerged in the trial, she was forced to perform heavy manual labor, shaved her head, subjected to continuous and violent beatings, deprived of food or medical care, and even had bleach thrown in her face.
(Unioneonline)
