Inside squalid house where disabled man was enslaved and starved by wife and carer
Tom Somerset-How, who has cerebral palsy, was forced to lie in his own urine and went weeks without being washed
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A vulnerable disabled man was made to live in squalid conditions at the hands of his wife and his carer, as they neglected him to take drugs and plan nights away.
Tom Somerset-How, 40, who has cerebral palsy and uses an electric wheelchair, had been treated “like a cow” and was forced to remain in bed, often lying in his own urine and faeces without adequate food.
Sarah Somerset-How, 49, and George Webb, 40, have both been jailed for 11 years after being found guilty of holding their victim in slavery/servitude and three counts of ill-treatment by a care worker between 2016 and 2020.
Pictures released by Sussex Police show Mr Somerset-How lying in a cramped bed while surrounded by bags and dirty laundry.
Jurors heard that the pair’s treatment of their victim was uncovered by a friend as well as by the victim’s sister Kate Somerset-Holmes, an actress who has appeared in Holby City and Silent Witness.
His wife had taken out loans in his name, leaving him in financial difficulty and had ensured that he remained separated from his family.
Webb, whose temper was described by the victim as a “nuclear bomb anger”, was also convicted of causing actual bodily harm while both defendants were acquitted of fraud by false representation and theft.
In a victim impact statement submitted to the court, Mr Somerset-How said: “When I was first interviewed by police, I explained that I felt like I was just being kept alive. For a long time laying in that room I think I really did not wish to accept that was the case. When it really started to sink in, that this was my life, I decided I wanted to end it all, but ridiculously, I couldn’t even manage that myself!
“Hearing in court that there was a five-year plan between them and the intention was to just use me has been a double blow. Firstly, acknowledging that Sarah had no intention for things to change, with a plan for me to live like that for as long as necessary. Secondly, now how very little they both thought of me in that time, my wife and carer despised me so much.
“I will always need help and support throughout my life from others, I honestly do not imagine how I will ever trust someone again.
“I still can’t sleep properly, and it’s rare for me to get a full night’s sleep. I believe that this is due to the psychological after effects of the circumstances I was put through. I still have to sleep with the lights on. On average I sleep four hours a night, which is hugely detrimental to my mental and physical well-being, sometimes it’s as low as two hours.
“My brain won’t switch off. When I was there, I didn’t feel safe and relaxed enough to sleep, this feeling hasn’t gone away, it’s like my brain has been trained that way now, as this was my life for four years.”
He added: “I feel like Sarah has ruined me for anyone else, I feel abandoned like I was pushed to one side, I couldn’t trust the one person who should have been on my side.”
He continued: “Before I met Sarah, I had a career, I went to the cinema and the pub, I had friends and I had a great life. When we first got together, she and I would do these things together, when George came into our lives, these things stopped.”
Sentencing the defendants, Judge William Ashworth praised Mr Somerset-How for his “courage” and said: “I find as fact of which I am sure that Tom Somerset-How was held in slavery for at least two years and eight months, kept in bed, deprived of adequate food or water, kept away from his family with the curtains drawn, frequently in his own urine and excrement, unwashed and unkempt.”
He added: “He was denigrated by the defendants and humiliated and his requests to go to the toilet scorned.”
The judge described how the defendants mocked Mr Somerset-How’s disability by comparing him to the movie alien ET and said he had suffered “serious psychological harm”.
He added: “He had lost any independence and was treated like a cow to be milked. But, in our society, a cow is protected by minimum standards of husbandry and not even these were afforded to Tom by his carers.”