Jail for woman who enslaved her sister-in-law
By Paul Stokes

Last Updated: 2:01pm GMT06/11/2006
A mother-of six-has been jailed for seven years for keeping her sister-in-law as a domestic slave for two years and forcing her to clean the house naked.




Jailed: Antonia Pearson-Gaballonie
A woman who forced her former sister-in-law to work naked as a domestic slave was jailed for seven years today.

Antonia Pearson-Gaballonie, 35, kept Veronica Sandeman, now 26, a prisoner in her home, burnt her clothes, assaulted her and made her beg for food. over a number of years.

Pearson-Gaballonie, a mother of six, from Acomb, York, had been convicted of false imprisonment, making threats to kill and six counts of assault occasioning actual bodily harm.

Judge Paul Hoffman, told Pearson-Gaballonie she was a “manipulative and cunning� individual who committed “callous and brutal� attacks on Miss Sandeman in a period of systematic abuse.



The judge also said she had gone to great lengths to avoid the trial at York Crown Court including making an attempt on her life, and even initially refused to enter the dock for the sentencing hearing today.

Neil Pearson, 35, whom Pearson-Gaballonie married in June 2004 after she and her victim’s soldier brother Steven divorced, was jailed for two years after being found guilty of one count of aiding and abetting an assault.

Miss Sandeman was subjected to two years of torture during which she was beaten with a belt and rolling pin.

She was forced to work in the nude for the last nine months and escaped only after her hair was hacked off and she was stabbed in the face with scissors on Christmas Day 2004.

The jury had heard that Pearson-Gaballonie “firmly ruled the house� and Miss Sandeman, who had a troubled upbringing in Scotland, was left isolated from her family and had no friends to turn to.