Sipping on her usual morning cuppa, Joanne Ferneyhough detected an unfamiliar taste.
But the hospital worker had no idea that what she had idly dismissed as sour milk was in fact poison. Nor could she imagine that the person who had put it there was her own husband.
Joanne’s scheming hubby Thomas had been lacing her tea with medicine meant for their dog Bella.
Now the mum of two has found the courage to share her story after her husband was locked up for abusive behaviour.
She said: “I started feeling really ill.
“I even went to the GP because I was oversleeping and very lethargic.
“The cup of tea tasted weird, but I always put it down to the milk being off. One time, I woke up to him shaking my arm and when I woke up he looked so relieved. He even told me he thought I was dead.”
Tired of his controlling behaviour, Joanne kicked her husband out last December but he then bombarded her with messages.
She only realised he had been drugging her after finding a near-empty bottle of dog medicine this January.
In August, Ferneyhough, 37, was jailed for 30 months for a string of offences including common assault and controlling or coercive behaviour.
Joanne, 42, said: “You never imagine the person you love would be capable of such awful things like drugging you. I think he was doing it because he knew I was planning to leave, and was trying to make me ‘need him’. I’m glad he’s finally out of my life.”
She said Thomas seemed like “a real catch” when they met on a dating app in 2014. “He was really great to start off with – very nice and loving,” she recalled. “I could see myself having a future with him.”
They moved in together after six months and wed in June 2017. Only a day later, he told Joanne that he now “owned” her. “We were sat in the car eating chips,” she said. “I told him no one owns me, but was worried. I didn’t think he was joking.”
Over the next two months he became “possessive and bad-tempered”, punching holes in the walls.
Joanne tried to break up that September but he kept turning up at her work, slashing her tyres, urinating on her car and starting rumours of an affair at her office.
“I was really upset and felt so humiliated,” she said.
Joanne got a restraining order but he breached it by messaging her – sometimes apologising and other times being angry.
In October 2017 he was convicted of harassment and jailed for 10 weeks. Afterwards he begged her to take him back and she decided to give him one more chance. “He had spent a lot of time reflecting and I really thought he’d changed,” she said.
They tried to make a go of things but Joanne said he was “possessive and controlling” throughout.
Then in August 2021 she started to feel lethargic and occasionally sick. Her husband was spiking her tea, and all the time his temper was worse.
Once when she was taking part in a remote work meeting, she says he kicked a cupboard and called her a “pathetic b***h”. He also threw a bacon roll at the wall because he found fat on the meat
“I felt really trapped and very scared,” said Joanne, of Stafford. “I was constantly looking over my shoulder and terrified of what he might do.”
In December 2021 she kicked him out and he threatened to burn down the house. “I really thought he might do it,” she recalled.
In January, Ferneyhough discharged himself from a mental health assessment and sent Joanne abusive audio messages. Police found him in a field a few days later. Joanne, a hospital administrator, later found that their dog’s medicine bottle was nearly empty, along with a bottle of sleeping tablets she had been prescribed.
“I realised he had been drugging me,” she said. The drug was a muscle relaxant for her pet pug Bella’s degenerative disorder.
Her husband was arrested and admitted common assault by drugging her, but he never confirmed this was the substance or said why he did it.
“I found it very hard to come to terms with,” she said.
Jailing Ferneyhough for 30 months in August this year, Judge John Edwards spoke of his “extremely sinister campaign” that “belittled and demeaned” his wife.
Joanne, who now battles anxiety, said: “I do feel the sentence should have been longer for everything I went through. It’s definitely affected my trust in men.”
She urged other victims of controlling partners to seek help, saying: “Speak out before things escalate.
“I was very lucky something worse didn’t happen.”
