WOMAN IMPRISONED AND FORCED TO WORK FOR TEWKESBURY MOTHER FOR MORE THAN 25 YEARS
Update 12/03/2026: A mother who held a woman captive as a slave inside her "squalid" home for 25 years has been sentenced to 13 years.Amanda Wixon, 56, forced the woman - now in her 40s - to shave her hair, regularly beat her if she didn't complete jobs around the home, and made her live off "scraps" of food.
It's also understood that while being held, Wixon, a mother of 10, stole more than £100,000 in benefits from the victim.
Wixon will serve two-thirds of her sentence.
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She was regularly beaten by Amanda Wixon, 56, had washing-up liquid squirted down her throat, bleach splashed on her face and her head was repeatedly shaved against her will.
The woman, who has learning disabilities, was 16 when she moved into Wixon’s home in Tewkesbury, Gloucestershire, in the mid-1990s and was supposed to stay only for the weekend but remained there until she was discovered by police in 2021.
When officers arrived, the house was overcrowded and had mould on the walls, plaster hanging off and rubbish in the back garden.
At Gloucester crown court on Wednesday Wixon was found guilty of false imprisonment, requiring a person to perform forced or compulsory labour and assault occasioning actual bodily harm.
Judge Lawrie said there was a “Dickensian quality” to the story and will sentence Wixon in March.
Sam Jones, for the prosecution, told the jury that the victim had in effect disappeared from society.
He said: “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 was denied food and the ability to wash over many years.” The court heard social services were involved with the family in the late 1990s but there were no records of contact since.
Jones said: “The fact remains that nothing was done by social services.” He said there were no medical records or dental records for the woman, and she had not seen a doctor in two decades.
“The lack of records from the hospital, the doctor and the dentist or any involvement with social services for 20 years provides further support of her never being allowed to leave the house.
“By the late 1990s it appears the woman disappeared into a black hole.
Not a single meeting that left a record.” Like many of those living in the house, including Wixon, the woman lost many of her teeth due to poor dental hygiene, the court heard.
Neighbours occasionally saw her in the garden.
One neighbour described the woman as “looking like something out of a concentration camp”.
Another claimed she was just “skin and bone” and described seeing her being hit with a broom.
One neighbour described Wixon in a social media post as a “slavekeeper”.
Police went to the house in March 2021 in response to a tip-off.
Officers described the woman’s bedroom as looking like a “prison cell”, with other bedrooms untidy and dirty.
Footage from police bodyworn cameras showed the woman appearing thin, timid, unwashed and fearful, with a bruise she attributed to Wixon.
She had scarring to her lips and face and large calluses on her feet and ankles from being constantly on her hands and knees cleaning floors.
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.” Since being rescued, the woman has been living with a foster family, attending college and has been on holidays abroad.
She has suffered nightmares about her ordeal, has a constant wish to clean and has grown her hair, as she always wanted to.
