The woman who kept a teenage girl imprisoned for a quarter century in horrific conditions refused to apologise to her victim outside court.
Amanda Wixon, 56, took the young woman – the daughter of her friend – back in 1995 and subjected her to 25 years of torment. Gloucester Crown Court heard the woman was regularly beaten and also hit with a broom handle, had washing-up liquid squirted down her throat, and bleach splashed on her face.
The woman, who is now in her mid-40s, was 16 when she moved into the squalid home of mum-of-10 Wixon and remained there until 2021. Her food was limited and could not leave the house. She was forced to secretly wash at night and made to work as a “house slave”.
Wixon was found guilty of six charges, including compulsory labour, false imprisonment and assault, by a jury and showed no remorse outside court after she discovered she would be released on conditional bail before being sentenced on March 12.
Asked what she had to say to her victim, she replied: “Not a lot.” Asked if she was sorry, she said: “No. I never done it.”
Quizzed on whether she was a “monster” as she stopped to light a cigarette, she replied: “Say what you think.” And after being told she could receive a 10-year prison sentence, Wixon replied: “I know that. Do you think I am stupid? Do you think I don’t know that?”
The family home in the Priors Park area of Tewkesbury, Gloucestershire, was overcrowded, in a squalid condition, with mould on the walls, plaster hanging off and rubbish in the back garden. The defendant denied a charge of false imprisonment, two charges of requiring a person to perform forced or compulsory labour, and four charges of assault occasioning actual bodily harm.
A jury acquitted her of one assault charge but found her guilty of the others. 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.”
Judge Ian Lawrie KC said there was a “Dickensian quality” to the story after the woman, who has learning difficulties, left her own “dysfunctional family”. Police went to the house in March 2021 in response to a report made by one of Wixon’s sons about the woman.
Officers described the woman’s bedroom as looking like a “prison cell”, with other bedrooms untidy and dirty. She 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.”
The court heard social services were involved with the family in the late 1990s but there were no records of any contact since. “The fact remains that nothing was done by social services,” Mr Jones said. There were no medical records or dental records for the woman, and she had not seen a doctor in two decades.
Edward Hollingsworth, defending, described the prosecution case as a “tale of fantasy and lies” and suggested there was a “child-like fantasy” to the woman’s allegations. “The life of Amanda Wixon was much more complicated and nuanced,” he said. “Her other children were not vaccinated, not attending school, and had rotting teeth and head lice.”
He said they all lived in squalid conditions and the other children’s bedrooms were equally as bad. “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 said. “Negligent but not the systematic abuse that has been alleged.”
mirror.co.uk
