A woman kept as a house slave for 25 years revealed her plight in a series of heartbreaking voice notes in which she dreamed of being allowed outside to walk the family dog.
The victim, who was beaten and starved during her ordeal at the hands of Amanda Wixon, sent the audio messages on a phone she had hidden away after Wixon beat her and destroyed a previous handset.
In one message the woman, who cannot be identified, said: ‘I was in agony last night, I was crying … I had no one to speak to.’
In another, she said: ‘Wish I could go out, take Marley [the family’s dog] for a walk every day of the week, wish I could do that but I can’t.’
Police said she also spoke about seeing sunlight after Wixon put black bags against windows of her home on a housing estate in Tewkesbury, Gloucestershire to stop her from seeing outside.
It was these voice notes, sent in March 2021 to one of Wixon’s children – expressing fear and saying she was unsafe – that police used to help build their case against Wixon, who was finally jailed for 13 years on Thursday.
The woman was aged 16 when Wixon moved her into her home in the mid-1990s under the guise of caring for her.
But Wixson ‘almost immediately’ took her to the benefits office to make sure her benefits were paid directly to her.
Amanda Wixon pictured arriving at Gloucester Crown Court for sentencing after being found guilty in January of human slavery offences
The room where the victim slept at Amanda Wixon’s home in Tewkesbury, Gloucestershire
Police estimate she took almost £100,000 – around £400 a month – which was intended for the victim but never spent on her.
By the time she was rescued by police in 2021 the woman had no teeth – either having rotted or been knocked out after she was assaulted with a broom handle.
The alarm was raised when the woman used a phone she had hidden to send voice notes to one of Wixon’s son.
A police officer who found her said she smelt heavily of body odour, even from two metres away, was malnourished, timid and frightened.
Asked by police when the woman last had a bath, Wixon said: ‘I can’t really remember’ video footage reveals.
In January Wixon, who has 10 children of her own, was found guilty in January of false imprisonment, two charges of requiring a person to perform forced or compulsory labour, and four charges of assault occasioning actual bodily harm following a trial.
Passing sentence at Gloucester Crown Court on Thursday Judge Ian Lawrie KC said Wixon, 56, was in ‘permanent denial’ about the impact of her offending on the woman, identified as ‘K’ was clearly ’emotionally and psychologically vulnerable’.
The court heard how after moving into Wixon’s home, the woman had effectively ‘disappeared’ from society.
Neighbours claim they reported their concerns in the early 2000s, and again in 2018. Social services were involved with the family in the late 1990s but there were no records of any contact since then.
The woman’s new foster carer has now called for an inquiry into why she was not discovered sooner.
She said: ‘It’s just a horrible situation which should never have happened. I think social services should be more alert and then maybe no one else will go through what she has been through.’
In an interview the woman who now cares for the victim, now 42, revealed the full extent of her ordeal.
And she told how she broke down in hysterics when she bumped into Wixon in a supermarket while she was out on bail.
‘She called her The Witch. She’s really scared of her. She’s petrified actually,’ she said.
‘You know, when the court case was going on, she went into a supermarket and bumped into her and she was hysterical. I mean, she was really terrified, petrified.
‘She was running around. It was horrible. She was just going through the aisles and saw her. And that was it. She went absolutely mad in the supermarket.’
The foster mother said there needed to be an inquiry into how the woman was left living in Wixon’s home for more than 20 years without the authorities knowing.
The foster carer, who was not named, said Wixon took ‘full advantage of her learning difficulties’ while Wixon’s child failed to help
‘She said a couple [of the children] was alright, the others were rude and calling her names…they didn’t stick up for her or anything now she is questioning why they didn’t stick up for her about what the mother was doing…maybe they were scared.
‘Nobody did anything, that is what I don’t understand.’
Asked if there should be a wider inquiry it to what has happened, she replied: ‘Yes I personally think it is appalling there should be something done about it.
‘I think it is disgusting frankly. She said in court she did approach someone but she was brushed off. I think social services need to be more alert.’
The foster carer said the woman would hopefully ‘be ok in time but is going to take time.’
‘She is enjoying life now because I am trying to show her a life she didn’t have before. I am trying my best anyway.
Fighting back tears she added: ‘She’s such a beautiful person she has a lot of love to give, she is kind and warm, she is lovely.’
Between January 1997 and March 2021, the victim described how Wixon strangled her, put her head down the toilet and poured cleaning fluids on her face and down her throat.
Wixon also stamped on the victim and hit her in the face with a broom handle, causing her to lose her teeth. She would also forcibly shave off the victim’s hair, despite the her wanting it long.
On one occasion, when Wixon discovered the victim had been given a mobile phone, she took it from her and hit her around the face with it, giving her a black eye. She then smashed the phone with a hammer.
On 15 March 2021, after feeling ill, the victim used another secret mobile phone she had been given, to call someone she knew for help.
The police were called and officers attended Wixon’s address at around 10.40pm that evening.
They found her frightened, gaunt and malnourished. Her hair was cropped close to her head and she had bruises on her arms.
In the victim’s bedroom they found a basic bed with filthy sheets, bare plaster walls with mould growing on them and no light bulb.
The victim was removed from the address and taken to hospital to be assessed, where doctors noted how she looked malnourished.
Doctors also noted calluses on her ankles, which were consistent with the victim’s account of spending hours on her knees sweeping the floor.
The victim was also taken to see a dentist for the first time, who noted that she would have been in severe pain at multiple points over the years due to infections and abscesses which were never treated.
Detective Superintendent Ian Fletcher said the case was one of the worst he had seen in his near-30 year policing career.
‘She was totally dehumanised,’ Mr Fletcher said.
‘I don’t think Amanda Wixon saw her as a human being.
‘She saw her as slave to use for her own will to make her life better, and she was treated very, very differently to Amanda’s own children.
‘She was expected to live in that squalor. But also was expected to clean up and make their lives better.’
Mr Fletcher said the house in the Priors Park area of Tewkesbury, Gloucestershire, was filthy and cluttered – but the young woman’s bedroom was worse than the rest of the house.
‘You look at the victim’s room, I describe as absolute squalor. It’s a horrific state of state affairs for someone to be living in,’ he said.
When police rescued the woman from Wixon’s home in 2021, she was in a very poor physical condition.
‘She had abscesses in her teeth and calluses across her feet, was severely malnourished, and she was in a very, very bad state, and she had not left that house for a very, very long time,’ he said.
‘Over the years, we believe that the victim was originally allowed out of the property, and neighbours have reported having seen her previously.
‘By the end, Wixon had actually lied to neighbours and family to say that she had moved to Scotland with a boyfriend and she was out of the location.
‘It was at that point that she was in essence kept captive inside the property, not even allowed out in the garden.
‘The psychological impact and then the physical beatings that came meant that she felt that she could not ever leave that property.’
The woman had her head forcibly shaved by Wixon and since being rescued has grown her hair long.
‘There were multiple assaults, she had her hair forcibly cut off, she was hit with a broom handle that knocked teeth out, which caused abscesses,’ Mr Fletcher said.
‘She had been punched and kicked, she was pushed down the stairs, and she had washing-up liquid pushed into her mouth.
‘It is absolutely horrific, the life that she’s lived. She’s missed the prime of her life, and she’s suffered huge psychological harm as a result of the way she’s been treated.’
Mr Fletcher said Wixon had shown no remorse towards the woman.
‘Even on the court steps after she was convicted, she still said that she had done no wrong,’ he said.
‘She’s shown no remorse whatsoever towards the victim. She’s dehumanised our victim.
‘She doesn’t believe that the victim is a real person, she doesn’t feel that they have any rights, and she just treats them as an absolute slave for her.
‘Only an absolutely wicked person could do that.
‘I’ve been in the police now nearly 29 years, and this is probably the worst, one of the worst cases I’ve seen.
‘The pure longevity of the harm that’s been caused throughout this time.’
