Inside squalid house where disabled man was enslaved and starved by wife and carer

For free real time breaking news alerts sent straight to your inbox sign up to our breaking news emails Sign up to our free breaking news emails Sign up to our free breaking news emails SIGN UP I would like to be emailed about offers, events and updates from The Independent. Tom Somerset-How, 40, who has cerebral palsy and uses an electric wheelchair, had been treated “like a cow” and was forced to remain in bed, often lying in his own urine and faeces without adequate food. Sarah Somerset-How, 49, and George Webb, 40, have both been jailed for 11 years after being found guilty of holding their victim in slavery/servitude and three counts of ill-treatment by a care worker between 2016 and 2020. open image in gallery George Webb and Sarah Somerset-How have both been jailed for 11 years Pictures released by Sussex Police show Mr Somerset-How lying in a cramped bed while surrounded by bags and dirty laundry. When I was there, I didn’t feel safe and relaxed enough to sleep, this feeling hasn’t gone away, it’s like my brain has been trained that way now, as this was my life for four years.” open image in gallery Tom Somerset-How with his family after his wife was jailed He added: “I feel like Sarah has ruined me for anyone else, I feel abandoned like I was pushed to one side, I couldn’t trust the one person who should have been on my side.” He continued: “Before I met Sarah, I had a career, I went to the cinema and the pub, I had friends and I had a great life. When we first got together, she and I would do these things together, when George came into our lives, these things stopped.” Sentencing the defendants, Judge William Ashworth praised Mr Somerset-How for his “courage” and said: “I find as fact of which I am sure that Tom Somerset-How was held in slavery for at least two years and eight months, kept in bed, deprived of adequate food or water, kept away from his family with the curtains drawn, frequently in his own urine and excrement, unwashed and unkempt.” He added: “He was denigrated by the defendants and humiliated and his requests to go to the toilet scorned.” The judge described how the defendants mocked Mr Somerset-How’s disability by comparing him to the movie alien ET and said he had suffered “serious psychological harm”.