Disabled man enslaved by wife & male carer reveals he was ‘too scared to sleep’ while being held in squalor for 4 YEARS
A DISABLED man enslaved by his wife and male carer reveals he was “too scared to sleep” while being held in squalor for four years.
Sarah Somerset-How and lover George Webb imprisoned her spouse Tom Somerset-How, barely keeping him alive while treating him “like a dog”.
The pair were found guilty of holding a person in slavery of servitude, after a four-week trial at Portsmouth crown court – the first ever case of its kind.
Jurors had heard from Tom’s actress twin sister Kate Somerset-Holmes how she had to “ambush” the carer to gain access to her brother, who she found in “squalid” conditions.
Kate Somerset-Holmes, who has appeared in Silent Witness and Holby City, said that her brother was “disorientated and very, very thin”.
Now, Tom has spoken out about the horror of his situation.
He told MailOnline: “I am grateful for the place I am now. If it wasn’t for them I would be dead. The state that I was in…both physically and emotionally. My friend didn’t even recognise me.
“I don’t sleep anymore. I was in a dark room all the time with just a bedside table lamp.
“I tried to sleep in complete darkness when I got out but I couldn’t. I sleep with two bedside lights on – it’s not a conscious thing.
“I sleep only three of four hours a night before waking up. It’s because I spent those four years too scared to sleep. I didn’t feel safe.
“When I was giving me evidence, I heard audible gasps from the jury. My family told me they were crying. I don’t want sympathy, I just don’t want it to happen to anyone else.
“Psychologically, I can’t trust anyone at face value anymore. I’m just thinking ‘what’s your agenda?”
And he revealed the “cherry on top” of spouse Sarah and her lover George Webb’s conviction was hearing they were now behind bars.
Tom added: “The cherry on top was hearing the Tannoy telling Sarah’s lawyers to ‘come to the cells.
“It was so satisfying to get retribution.
“The fact that they’re not swanning around thinking they got away with it – they’re locked up in a dark cell.”
Prosecutors said the couple treated her husband – who needs 24-hour care – as a “cash cow”, spending his inheritance and buying themselves lingerie and DJ equipment.
Tom, an intelligent history graduate from a wealthy family, was kept in bed for 90 per cent of the time – only allowed to shower once a week and left with just crisps and a sandwich for food, it was heard.
The court heard his weight had plummeted to 6st 10lbs and he was found unwashed in “disgusting” living conditions.
LIFE IN SQUALOR
According to prosecutors, the Somerset-How slavery case is the first of its kind, as the charge usually applies to victims who have been trafficked from abroad or forced to work for no pay.
Prosecutors argued that by cutting him off from his family and by using his financial resources, the neglect was so bad Mr Somerset-How was in effect being treated like a slave at his home in Chichester, West Sussex.
Rejecting a defence application to dismiss the slavery charge halfway through the trial, Judge William Ashworth ruled: “There is ample evidence that Tom was held as if he was a cattle or animal.”
The court heard Mr Somerset-How met his wife in 2008 through Gina Zeelie, a friend who worked with her.
At this time, he was living in sheltered accommodation and recovering from surgery.
They moved into a purpose-built bungalow in Chichester in 2010 and had 24-hour care paid for by social services during the week, with his wife providing weekend cover.
Webb, working for healthcare agency NursePlus, arrived in 2016 to help care for him, with the three of them living in the same house.
This then transitioned into private care, paid for by Mr Somerset-How at a rate of £4,000 a month – but the ill-treatment worsened over the following four months.
The trial heard that Mrs Somerset-How and Webb had deliberately isolated her husband from his family including mother Helen and West End actress Kate.
‘I JUST SHUT DOWN’
Tom said: “Being ostracised from my family – it broke me.”
“It really upset me. For the first 18 months of those four years I cried and begged, ‘What is going on? This isn’t how it should be’.
“I just stopped asking. I just shut down. Sarah would use me as an excuse, so I would use that reasoning not to see my family. I hated it.”
The jury was told that eventually, Mr Somerset-How managed to raise the alarm about how he was being treated with a friend who alerted his parents.
They then staged a rescue with police and social services, “an operation that had the marks of extracting someone as a hostage”, the court heard.
Admitting he had an affair with his client’s wife, Webb told the court: “I know it wasn’t appropriate. We all make mistakes. It is one of my biggest mistakes ever.”
Somerset-How also admitted the affair and said Webb was her “rock” and they had grown “closer than we should have”.
But she denied a long-running relationship, saying the affair that began shortly after they first met fizzled out before rekindling briefly three years later.