Mum-of-10 stored toothless slave in horror home for 25 years and did not let her wash

Amanda Wixon, 56, imprisoned a woman for over 25 years after inviting her for a weekend sleepover when she was just 16 before pocketing over £33,000 in her victim’s benefits

View 5 Images

A Brit mum-of-10 held a woman captive for 25 years in a horrific abuse campaign cruelly keeping her as the family’s slave after a sleepover has been jailed. The victim, who was just 16 when the ordeal began, had been staying at Amanda Wixon’s home for the weekend.

Instead of safeguarding her friend’s daughter, evil Wixon, 56, used the innocent sleepover as an opportunity to ensnare the vulnerable teenager into a life of captivity and torment. She also stole the victim’s benefits, pocketing thousands of pounds.

Trapped in dreadful conditions from 1997, the secondary school student was assaulted “many, many times,” had her hair forcibly shaved off and was denied food and basic hygiene. She was also forced to clean Wixon’s house – often on her knees – and was even made to help care for her captor’s children, the court heard.

Wixon, from Tewkesbury, a picturesque market town in Gloucestershire, kept the vile secret hidden for decades. In a remarkable escape in 2021, her victim, now in her 40s, managed to use a mobile phone she had secretly hidden to contact authorities. Today, she was jailed for 13 years.

The jury heard disturbing evidence about the “appalling” conditions in which the victim was imprisoned. For more than two decades, she was forbidden from leaving as Wixon – menacingly known as ‘The Witch’ by the woman she had enslaved – locked the doors and windows.

Despite being denied basic personal hygiene herself, the woman was compelled to wash the children and run baths for Wixon. Even whilst enduring physical violence and living in appalling conditions, the brave victim managed to covertly record audio messages about her suffering on a hidden mobile phone.

The prosecution disclosed that Wixon had shaved off the woman’s hair, attacked her with a broom handle, and forced washing-up liquid down her throat.

When police arrived at Wixon’s home, officers found the victim battered and without teeth – the consequence of sustained brutality she had suffered. The woman had spent years surviving on scraps and sleeping in a damp, mould-ridden room with blank walls, which jurors compared to a prison cell.

Devastating bodycam footage from the officers, shown to the court, revealed the ‘vulnerable’ victim looking skeletal, filthy, frightened, and petrified. She told her rescuers that she hadn’t washed in over a year.

Wixon was found guilty of multiple counts of assault causing actual bodily harm, false imprisonment, and forcing a person to perform compulsory labour. The callous mother showed no emotion when the verdict was announced.

During the sentencing hearing of Wixon at Gloucester Crown Court, Sam Jones, prosecuting, read a note the victim had written to the court.

The woman, who is not being identified, said: “For 25 years, I lived in fear, control and abuse. I was treated as though my life, my freedom and my voice did not matter.

“Although my abuser has now been found guilty, the trauma and the nightmares are something I still carry with me every day. I am now living with a wonderful family who show me kindness, patience and support.

“Their love is helping me slowly rebuild the life that was taken from me and begin to feel safe again. Nothing can give me back the 25 years I lost.”

The family home, shared by Wixon and her 10 children, was described as overcrowded, in squalid conditions, with mould blanketing the walls, crumbling plaster and rubbish strewn across the back garden.

The victim described countless assaults, including being kicked, battered, pushed down stairs and throttled. She claimed that the other children living at the property were spared from the domestic chores she was compelled to carry out.

Sam Jones, prosecuting, told the jury: “She was kept in and prevented from leaving the address and she was assaulted and hit many, many times and forced to work with the threats of violence. She had been denied food and the ability to wash over many years.”

The judge noted there was a “Dickensian quality” to the case as the woman, who has learning difficulties, was born into a “dysfunctional family” before her captivity. When officers arrived, following a tip-off from one of Wixon’s sons, the victim told police: “I don’t want to be here. I don’t feel safe. Mandy hits me all the time. I don’t like it. I haven’t washed for years. She doesn’t let me.”

Her Body Mass Index was “very close” to being underweight when officials found her. The victim was also discovered with scarring to her lips and face and large calluses on her feet and ankles from being constantly on her hands and knees scrubbing floors.

Wixon would threaten her with violence if she failed to complete her domestic chores.

One neighbour described the woman as “looking like something out of a concentration camp”. Another witnessed her appearing “skin and bone” with a shaved head and described seeing her being struck with a broom.

A neighbour of Wixon’s says she repeatedly contacted social services “but nothing was ever done”. Neighbour Kiram, 33, was a witness in the case against the 56-year-old and says she saw her victim regularly tapping on the windows from inside.

Kiram gave a statement to police about the abuse which Wixon has now admitted. The neighbour recalls seeing the victim being beaten up, ripped up “like a rag doll” and constantly sat down on her legs in the house.

She said: “It was disgusting. I’m just so shocked it’s been in waiting for so long. I was a neighbour from the age of 13. I mentioned it to my mum because I could see if from my room. I made phone calls for social services, nothing was ever done.

“The last time, they were informed, was back in 2019.’ Social services failed her massively. She was diagnosed with global development delay. And obviously, a lot of other learning difficulties. You could tell that she was vulnerable. The hygiene was not there. It was like house of horrors. There were a few occasions where she’d come to the window. But that was years later. We didn’t think she was still there.”

“Last time I probably properly seen her was when I was a kid. Then after that, I think, first time we’ve seen her was then around 2016. And then after that, it was 2020 or 2021 but we were in lockdown. And that’s when she was knocking on windows. It was just knocking and waving, but nothing was ever said.”

The court was informed that social services had dealings with the family in the late 1990s, but no records of any subsequent contact existed. The woman also lacked medical or dental records and hadn’t visited a doctor in two decades.

“By the late 1990s it appears the woman disappeared into a black hole. Not a single meeting that left a record or a single sighting of her outside the house,” stated the prosecutor.

Edward Hollingsworth, defending, characterised the prosecution’s case as a “tale of fantasy and lies”, suggesting a “child-like fantasy” underpinned the woman’s allegations. “The life of Amanda Wixon was much more complicated and nuanced,” he declared.

“Her other children were not vaccinated, not attending school, and had rotting teeth and head lice.”

He described their living conditions as squalid, with the other children’s bedrooms being equally appalling. “The truth is, that just like Mandy and others in the family, their teeth rotted out by neglect, and has been inflated to a story of violent abuse,” he stated.

Passing sentence Judge Ian Lawrie KC said Wixon was in “permanent denial” about the impact of her offending on the woman.

“The gravity of your offending is so serious that I am imposing a significant period of custody,” the judge said.

“You are to be punished for a series of offences spanning 20 years. You cruelly and persistently held captive this woman. This false imprisonment ran from her later teens until early 40s.

“The enduring persistent trauma of that slavery remains. This offending was not isolated and was persistent over many years.”