WARNING: This article discusses experiences of abuse and includes descriptions of physical and emotional harm. Reader discretion is advised.
A woman in the UK has been found guilty of keeping a woman with learning difficulties captive for 25 years and forcing her to work in her home in Tewkesbury.
The woman, now in her 40s, lived under strict control from the mid-1990s until police rescued her in 2021.
Highlights
- Amanda Wixon kept a woman with learning difficulties captive for 25 years, forcing her into unpaid domestic servitude and abuse.
- The victim was confined, isolated, beaten, denied food, washing, and medical care, living in harsh and unhygienic conditions.
- Rescue came in 2021 after the woman used a secret phone to call for help due to illness, ending decades of captivity.
- She had no medical records for 20 years, was malnourished, with untreated dental problems and visible bruising.
Amanda Wixon, 56, a mother of 10, faced a jury at Gloucester Crown Court, which found her guilty of false imprisonment, requiring a person to perform forced or compulsory labor, and assault occasioning actual bodily harm.
Amanda Wixon was found guilty of keeping a woman captive for 25 years
Image credits: Gloucestershire Constabulary
The victim moved into Wixon’s home when she was 16. She was meant to stay for a weekend, but never left.
Prosecutors said Wixon prevented her from leaving the house, isolated her from the outside world, and used violence and threats to control her.
The woman lived off scraps of food and was not allowed to wash herself. She secretly washed at night when she had the chance.
Wixon repeatedly shaved her head against her will. The court heard Wixon beat her regularly, squirted washing-up liquid down her throat, and splashed bleach on her face. On one occasion, Wixon hit her with a broom handle, knocking out her teeth.
The woman carried out household chores every day. She cleaned floors on her hands and knees, washed clothes, and served meals to the family. Police said her feet and ankles developed large calluses from constant cleaning.
Despite claiming benefits in the victim’s name for years, Wixon deprived her of money and forced her to wear secondhand clothes.
Image credits: Jacob King/Getty Images
One report by The Daily Star states police discovered the woman in March 2021 after one of Wixon’s sons raised concerns. Another says she called the police herself.
According to reporting by The Guardian, in March 2021, the woman was feeling ill and used a secret mobile phone to call for help.
DC Emma Jackson from Gloucestershire police said, “Wixon kept an extremely vulnerable victim captive in appalling conditions for over two decades.
“Instead of caring for her, as she was supposed to, she exploited her and forced her to work in domestic servitude whilst subjecting her to the most cruel and inhumane treatment.”
“I commend the victim in this case for reaching out for help. Knowing all too well what the violent consequences would have been if she’d been caught, it was incredibly courageous of her.”
When officers arrived at the house, they found it to be overcrowded and in poor condition. Mold covered the walls, plaster hung loose, and rubbish filled the back garden.
Image credits: Gloucestershire Constabulary
At times, up to 13 people lived there.
At Gloucester Crown Court, Judge Ian Lawrie said there was a “Dickensian quality” to the story.
Officers described the woman’s bedroom as a “prison cell.” Body-worn camera footage showed her looking thin, unwashed, and frightened. She had a bruise she attributed to Wixon.
The woman 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.”
She also referred to Wixon as “a witch.”
Judge Ian Lawrie said there was a ‘Dickensian quality’ to the story
Doctors later found she was malnourished. A dentist said she had untreated infections and abscesses that would have caused years of pain. She had also lost many of her teeth due to poor dental hygiene.
Prosecutors said the woman effectively vanished from public life. She had no medical or dental records for around 20 years and had not seen a doctor during that time.
Social services had contact with the family in the late 1990s, but left no records after that. Prosecutor Sam Jones told the court the woman “disappeared into a black hole.”
“Not a single meeting that left a record or a single sighting of her outside the house,” Jones said.
Neighbors sometimes saw the woman in the garden. One described her as “skin and bone,” while another said she looked “like something out of a concentration camp.”
Image credits: Ben Birchall/Getty Images
Wixon’s defense attorney, Edward Hollingsworth, described the prosecution’s case as a “tale of fantasy and lies.”
“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. Negligent but not the systematic abuse that has been alleged,” Hollingsworth said.
When told she could get a 10-year prison sentence, Wixon replied, “I know that. Do you think I am stupid? Do you think I don’t know that?”
Reporters later asked her if she was sorry, and she said, “No. I never done it.”
Since her rescue, the woman has moved in with a foster family. She attends college, has traveled abroad, and is rebuilding her life.
She has grown her hair and now lives with the freedom she was denied for decades. She also suffers from nightmares about her ordeal and has a constant wish to clean.
Wixon was released on conditional bail and will be sentenced on March 12.