A woman who was kept prisoner in her home by her controlling husband for FOUR YEARS today told how she escaped after sending a secret message to her mum on FACEBOOK.
The victim, in her mid-20s, told how she was kept captive by her husband who used mental abuse as a form of control.
She finally escaped her daily hell when she managed to send a secret message to her mum on Facebook begging her to call the police.
The woman, who wishes to remain anonymous, said she first met her husband when she was aged 15 and he was 19 while living in South Holland, Lincs.
She said: “He pressured me to get engaged and within nine months we were married.
“I was so young I was swept off my feet, but he was always controlling.
“On occasions I was allowed to walk up and down the street, but I had to stay on the phone to him.
“Things started to get really bad when my husband became agoraphobic.
“I wasn’t allowed out and barely saw my family and friends because they were made to feel so uncomfortable.
“I wasn’t allowed to go to the shops – my clothes just stretched with me – and if I was ill I just had to get over it.
“When someone is constantly saying you are no good, ugly, fat and couldn’t get a job you believe it.
“He left me an empty shell with zero confidence and said if I tried to leave him he would kill himself and it would be my fault.”
The woman finally managed to send a message on Facebook to her mum asking her for help.
The mother contacted police and they hatched a plan to whisk the woman out of the house without raising the suspicions of her deranged husband.
She added: “I told Mum I couldn’t go on and she said to help me she would have to call the police.
“The day I knew they were coming I started to get emotional and covered it up by saying I was upset about the shouting the night before.
“When they arrived I remember wondering when police officers had grown so tall.
“There was this enormous man with a booming voice pretending to ask about the cars on the front while my husband’s mother was called in case he tried to do anything.
“Then I told him I was leaving and got in the police car. From that moment I started looking forward – I could be young again.
“The next day I went shopping with my mum and remember being fascinated that you could buy Marmite in a squeezy bottle.
“There were shops and roads I’d never seen. The world had changed and I had no clue.
“I can’t thank the police and the Public Protection Unit officers enough for their help. They have an immense support network and have been fantastic.
“The experience has left me scarred.
“I still get voices in my head telling me ‘you’re ugly, fat and useless’ but now I know it’s not true.
“I’m a uni student, I have a part-time job and a boyfriend and for the first time since I can remember I’m looking forward to opening my presents at Christmas.”
The woman spoke out after three women were rescued from a house in London after being kept as ‘domestic slaves’ for 30 years.
She said: “I am so happy I’ve been given this opportunity to speak because I might be able to stop someone else going through what I did.”
The husband was never charged with any criminal offence but was slapped with a Police Information Notice warning him not to contact his wife again.
A spokeswoman for Lincolnshire Police said: “The victim just wanted to get out of the situation.
“The husband was issued with a Police Information Notice which is the equivalent of a harassment warning.
“If he breaks that warning then the police could bring criminal proceedings against him.”
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