A partially blind disabled man whose wife and carer were found guilty of slavery has broken his silence following the conclusion of their unprecedented trial.
Tom Somerset-How said hearing the guilty verdicts against Sarah Somerset-How, 49, and George Webb, 50, was "absolutely beautiful".
The evil pair were having an affair and kept the 40-year-old like a “prisoner in his own home” in Chichester, West Sussex, where he was cut off from his loved ones.
Almost blind Mr Somerset-How has cerebral palsy and requires 24 hour care, but the pair abandoned him in his bed for the vast majority of the time.
He was not able to brush his teeth for a year and was allowed a shower once a week.
He eventually raised the alarm sparking a rescue operation which the court heard was akin to a “hostage extraction”.
His wife and carer were charged under modern slavery legislation and last week found guilty of holding a person in slavery or servitude.
Speaking to the Daily Mail, Mr Somerset-How said: "The cherry on top was hearing the Tannoy telling Sarah's lawyers to 'come to the cells'.
"It was so satisfying to get retribution.
"The fact that they're not swanning around thinking they got away with it - they're locked up in a dark cell."
He said his wife seemed "really lovely" at first and he was happy to have found someone to love him "as I am".
Mr Somerset-How said carer Webb quickly "got his feet under the table and that was it".
He explained being slowly ostracised from his family by the lovers "broke me" and he cried, begging for answers before simply shutting down during the four-year ordeal.
Mr Somerset-How became suspicious when he heard sex noises coming from the living room at 2am, though his wife and Webb denied having an affair.
He described how they would go to Webb's DJ studio for eight hours a day, while the "crystallising detail" was when Sarah Somerset-How called an ambulance "beside herself" when they feared Webb was having a heart attack.
In texts read out to the court, Webb had told his lover: "Get rid of him. Go find yourself a man. I think you need to leave Tom and get your life back."
Mr Somerset-How said he now struggles to sleep without two bedside lights on - and even then can only get off for three or four hours a night.
He said while giving his evidence in court his family said the jury were crying.
Mum Helen, who has an MBE for her charity work, has called for social services to "look very carefully at the warning signs" and said there needs to be a way of monitoring private carers.
During the trial, the couple's lawyers attempted to have the slavery charges dismissed, arguing there was no evidence Mr Somerset-How was being treated as a 'possession'.
Paul Cavin KC, prosecuting, said: "This statute was drafted broadly and for good reason, because in the past they had very narrow definitions.
“The Crown say that both slavery and servitude can be made here.
"It is servitude by coercion by keeping him in a position where he was providing a service. He was allowing them to live off him. By keeping him alive he provided them with a roof over their head.
"It is the use of him and effective imprisonment of him, keeping him away from his family, that allowed them to use his benefits. That is why this applies to both slavery and servitude.
"If there was no benefit to the defendants and they decided to have an affair and keep the partner in a room and he was disabled that would be slavery because it is a complete denial of autonomy.
"If they hadn't enslaved him, he would have dismissed Webb and maybe divorced his wife.
"This is a man who had all his autonomy taken away from him. Total ownership had been taken over him in a way that a master does over a dog when he puts him in the kitchen."
Rejecting the defence application, Judge Ashworth concluded: "There is ample evidence Tom was held as if he was a cattle or animal.
"The circumstances were just above survival.
"The defendants could utilise Tom so that Webb could continue to be employed and they could both stay at the address."
The defendants are set to be sentenced at a later date.
