Inside the House of Horror: Filthy Dungeon Cell Where ‘The Witch’ Mum-of-Ten Kept a Vulnerable Girl as a Slave for 25 Years Finally Exposed

The door creaks open, and a police torch cuts through the darkness.

What it reveals is not a bedroom. It is not even a place fit for an animal. It is a damp, stinking cell — a human cage — where a frightened girl grew into a broken woman, trapped in silence for a quarter of a century.

This is the squalid “prison room” where a 56-year-old mother-of-ten, chillingly nicknamed “The Witch”, kept her victim hidden from the world in what a judge later described as a “Dickensian” nightmare.

Now, haunting police bodycam footage has finally laid bare the grim reality of life inside the Gloucestershire house of horrors.

For the first time, the public can see the filthy mattress, the ragged blankets, the peeling walls and the shadows where K — a vulnerable child when she arrived — spent more than 25 years as a captive servant.

Taken In — Then Trapped

In 1996, K was just 14 years old.

Her parents, described in court as part of Amanda Wixon’s “extended family,” were struggling. They believed they were sending their daughter to a safe home — a place where she would be looked after.

Instead, they unknowingly delivered her into a living nightmare.

Wixon, then a young mum with children of her own, welcomed the teenager into her council house in Tewkesbury, Gloucestershire. But what began as an act of “kindness” soon twisted into something far darker.

Behind closed doors, prosecutors say, K was transformed from a guest into a slave.

She would remain there for 25 years.

A Life of Fear and Violence

Inside the crowded house, K’s world shrank to a handful of rooms — and eventually to a single, filthy bedroom.

She was beaten and kicked regularly, the court heard. On more than one occasion, Wixon allegedly threw her down the stairs.

In one of the most harrowing moments described during the two-week trial, K was struck in the face with a broom handle, shattering several of her teeth.

Another time, in a chilling act of humiliation and cruelty, Wixon forced K’s head into the toilet and flushed it.

K later told police she referred to her captor as “The Witch.”

And like something from a gothic novel, the house itself became part of the prison.

The kitchen windows were covered with black bin liners, blocking out daylight and stopping K from looking outside. The outside world — freedom, people, life — was kept deliberately out of sight.

Forced to Serve

While Wixon raised her own children, K was forced to care for them.

She cleaned the house. Looked after the pets. Cooked and scrubbed and worked from morning to night.

Food was rationed like a punishment.

K was allowed to eat only leftovers — once a day. She was forbidden from taking food from the kitchen herself.

Her “bedroom” was a damp, unpainted box with a filthy mattress and a pile of tattered blankets dumped in the corner.

That was her refuge. Her hiding place. Her only escape from the abuse.

The Moment Police Stepped Inside

In March 2021, the secret finally broke.

After more than two decades in captivity, K managed to call for help using a hidden phone — a lifeline she had kept secret from “The Witch.”

When officers arrived at the council property, what they found left them stunned.

Bodycam footage shows a police officer stepping into the tiny room, torch in hand.

“Absolutely filthy bedding,” he mutters, his voice echoing in the damp, dark space.

The walls are bare and stained. The air is heavy. The floor cluttered.

Under a pillow, he discovers a small, crumpled note — phone numbers scrawled in shaky handwriting. Nearby, a hidden stash of coins, tucked away like a secret treasure.

The officer breathes heavily as he searches the rancid room, forced to use his torch just to see.

This was the space where K slept, hid, cried, and survived.

A Broken Woman Found

When K was finally rescued, she was in her 40s.

She was thin. Dirty. Toothless.

One officer noted in his report: “She smelt heavily of body odour, even from two metres away. She was malnourished, timid and frightened.”

She had barely known the outside world for half her life.

Neighbours later admitted they had no idea she even existed.

“She was like a ghost,” one local said. “You never saw her. None of us did.”

The House Everyone Walked Past

At least three of Wixon’s children still live in the large council house on the edge of town.

To the outside world, it looked like just another family home on a quiet housing estate.

But behind those walls, prosecutors said, a modern-day slavery operation was hiding in plain sight.

Some neighbours claimed Wixon was obsessed with scratchcards, saying: “Mandy is on every benefit going and used all her benefits to buy scratchcards.”

Few suspected that inside the same house, a woman was being starved, beaten and controlled.

A Judge’s Chilling Words

At Gloucester Crown Court, Wixon was found guilty of a string of horrific offences, including false imprisonment, assault, and forcing a person to perform compulsory labour.

Summing up, His Honour Judge Ian Lawrie KC told the jury: “There is almost a Dickensian quality to this case.

“The prosecution say she was held prisoner in this crowded house, regularly assaulted physically and emotionally.

“You must decide whether Mandy took K in out of selfless kindness — or whether she selfishly took advantage of a vulnerable, helpless youngster.”

The jury’s verdict was clear.

Life After the Nightmare

Since her rescue, K’s life has slowly begun again.

Social workers report she has put on weight and is now attending maths and English lessons at a local college.

She plays football regularly — a simple joy she was denied for decades.

For the first time since she was a child, she can walk outside, speak freely, and make her own choices.

The Sentence Still to Come

Wixon now waits to be sentenced next month.

The woman known in court as “The Witch” sits in custody, while the world finally sees what she hid for 25 years.

And as the haunting bodycam footage spreads, one question lingers in the minds of everyone who watches it:

How could a human being be kept in a filthy, forgotten room — in the heart of a quiet British town — for a quarter of a century… without anyone noticing?

The torch beam fades. The door closes.

But the shadow of that tiny, damp room will haunt this case for a long time to come.