Mother of 10 who kept vulnerable woman as ‘house slave’ for 25 years found guilty
Amanda Wixon, 56, held the woman between 1995 and 2021 at her family home in Gloucestershire
A teenage girl was forced to work as a “house slave” for over 25 years, a court has heard.
Now in her mid-40s, the victim was 16 when she moved into the squalid home of Amanda Wixon, 56, a mother of ten, in 1995, remaining until 2021.
Gloucester Crown Court heard she was regularly beaten, including being hit with a broom handle, which knocked out her teeth.
Further abuse included washing-up liquid squirted down her throat, bleach splashed on her face, and her head repeatedly shaved against her will.
Wixon limited her food, forcing her to live off scraps, while she was forbidden from leaving the house and compelled to wash in secret at night.
The family home in the Priors Park area of Tewkesbury, Gloucestershire, was overcrowded, in a squalid condition, with mould on the walls, plaster hanging off and rubbish in the back garden.
The defendant denied a charge of false imprisonment, two charges of requiring a person to perform forced or compulsory labour, and four charges of assault occasioning actual bodily harm.
A jury acquitted her of one assault charge but found her guilty of the others.
Wixon was released on conditional bail and will be sentenced on March 12.
Sam Jones, prosecuting, told the jury: “She was kept in and prevented from leaving the address and she was assaulted and hit many, many times and forced to work with the threats of violence.
“She had been denied food and the ability to wash over many years.”
Judge Ian Lawrie KC said there was a “Dickensian quality” to the story after the woman, who has learning difficulties, left her own “dysfunctional family”.
Police went to the house in March 2021 in response to a report made by one of Wixon’s sons about the woman.
Officers described the woman’s bedroom as looking like a “prison cell”, with other bedrooms untidy and dirty.
She told police: “I don’t want to be here. I don’t feel safe. Mandy hits me all the time. I don’t like it.
“I haven’t washed for years. She doesn’t let me.”
The court heard social services were involved with the family in the late 1990s but there were no records of any contact since.
“The fact remains that nothing was done by social services,” Mr Jones said.
There were no medical records or dental records for the woman, and she had not seen a doctor in two decades.
“The lack of records from the hospital, the doctor and the dentist or any involvement with social services for 20 years provides further support of her never being allowed to leave the house,” Mr Jones said.
“By the late 1990s it appears the woman disappeared into a black hole. Not a single meeting that left a record or a single sighting of her outside the house,” he added.
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