A wife and a live-in care worker have been jailed for 11 years each for enslaving her vulnerable disabled husband in what is believed to be the first case of its kind.
Sarah Somerset-How and George Webb, who were having an affair, kept Tom Somerset-How in dirty conditions and treated him “like a piece of property”.
The pair were found guilty of holding a person in slavery or servitude, after the judge William Ashworth ruled there was ample evidence that Tom Somerset-How had been held “as if he was cattle”.
Portsmouth crown court heard that Sarah Somerset-How, 49, and Webb, 50, left her husband – who has cerebral palsy, is almost blind, uses a wheelchair and needs 24-hour care – in bed for 90% of the time and allowed him a shower once a week. He went for almost a year without brushing his teeth.
The judge said they had treated him “like a cow to be milked” but with less respect than a farmyard animal. He said: “Tom was integral to building up their savings and to George Webb’s DJ studio. He provided them with a house and George Webb with employment.
“There was gratuitous degradation. He was left in bed with the curtains drawn with inadequate food or drink and left in his own excrement and urine.”
In a victim impact statement, Tom Somerset-How, 40, said: “When it really sunk in that this was my life, I wanted to end it all, and I couldn’t even do that myself.
“The extent of the betrayal was hard to bear. I can’t imagine I will ever trust someone again. I sometimes go into my room and do a primal scream until my voice stops working. I can’t even cry because the tears won’t come out.”
Tom Somerset-How, a history graduate, eventually raised the alarm about how he was being treated at his bungalow in Chichester, West Sussex, and a rescue operation, compared in court to a hostage extraction, involving police and social services, took place.
Jurors were told that the Somerset-Hows moved into the bungalow in 2010. Webb arrived in 2016 to take a position as a care worker, and the three shared the house.
Paul Cavin KC, prosecuting, said: “Tom gave an estimate that he spent nearly 90% of the next four years in bed. Every few months, he was allowed to see his mother. He went weeks without showering and almost a year without brushing his teeth.
“Every aspect of his life was controlled. The independence he had was taken away from him by the defendants. He became a prisoner in his own home. He was entirely dependent on his abusers to stay alive.”
