Seven-year sentence for 'sister-in-law slave driver'
Antonia Pearson-Gaballonie and her partner Neil Pearson will spend nine years in jail
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Monday, 06, Nov 2006 07:17
A woman who systematically abused her sister-in-law and forced her to work as a slave was today jailed for seven years.
Antonia Pearson-Gaballonie, 35, of New Lane, Acomb, York, had been found guilty of falsely imprisoning Veronica Sandeman, eight years her junior, as well as making threats to kill her and causing actual bodily harm.
York crown court heard how the mother of six and her partner Neil Pearson used belts and scissors to beat Ms Sandeman, who was made to work naked and beg for food.
Pearson was today jailed for two years for aiding and abetting Pearson-Gaballonie.
Judge Paul Hoffman today said: "You have been callous and particularly brutal to your sister-in-law who was vulnerable and dependent upon you.
"How one person can behave to another with such cruelty, it's very hard to contemplate, but you did, and much of this at a time when you falsely imprisoned her."
Ms Sandeman only managed to escape on December 28th 2004 when she sought refuge at the house of a woman who she had befriended when taking her captor's children to school, one of the rare occasions she was allowed to leave the house.
Speaking after today's sentence, Detective Inspector Mick Moore of North Yorkshire police said: "At the end of this extremely long legal process I want to pay tribute to the victim in this horrendous case.
"She has shown enormous courage and determination throughout and I hope today's sentence will bring some degree of closure for her," he added in quotes reported by the BBC.