A cheating wife and her lover who enslaved her “vulnerable” disabled husband leaving him to live in squalor have been jailed for 11 years. Sarah Somerset-How, 49, and George Webb, 40, were found guilty of holding Tom Somerset-How in slavery/servitude and three counts of ill-treatment by a care worker between 2016 and 2020 at the end of a Portsmouth Crown Court trial.
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Webb, whose temper was described by Mr Somerset-How as “nuclear bomb anger”, was also convicted of causing actual bodily harm. Both defendants were found not guilty of fraud by false representation and theft.
The court was told the pair, from Bognor Regis, West Sussex, neglected, abused and exploited Mr Somerset-How, 40, who was left bed-bound and malnourished. Text messages from their mobile phones helped prove they intentionally neglected their victim in order to take drugs and plan nights away together.
The trial heard the pair’s treatment of Mr Somerset-How, who has cerebral palsy and uses an electric wheelchair, was uncovered by his twin sister, Holby City actress Kate Somerset-Holmes, and a friend.
In a victim impact statement read to the court, Mr Somerset-How described how he was shocked to find out his wife and Webb had a “five-year plan” to continue exploiting him and that they “despised” him.
He said: “The extent of the betrayal was hard to bear for a long time. I felt I was just being kept alive. When the reality sank in – this really was my life – I wanted to end it all. I couldn’t even manage that.”
Mr Somerset-How 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.”
Mr Somerset-How said he had been worried he would not have been able to build bridges with his family, including his mother, who he had pushed away while being “monitored” by his wife and Webb to ensure he did not reveal their treatment of him.
He said: “I couldn’t explain to her what was happening. I thought it was better they stay away, protect them from George and the nuclear bomb that was his anger.”
Mr Somerset-How said he is now living in a care institution but has ambitions to live more independently again.
Describing his frustration at his treatment, he said in his care home room he would cry a “primal scream” until he lost his voice.
Judge William Ashworth praised Mr Somerset-How for his “courage” and said he was denigrated by the defendants and humiliated with 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.”
The judge said that Webb exploited Mr Somerset-How with the aim of saving up money to pay for a music studio for his ambition to become a DJ.
Mr Somerset-How, speaking outside court, said justice had been served.
He added: “It is the best outcome I could hope for. It will help me move forward and I can’t thank the lawyers, the police and the judge enough for what they have done.
“It won’t undo the psychological damage, but the positives I have taken from this will help me move forward in my life.”
