Husband jailed for 18 years over wife abuse

Leeds Crown Court heard his victim felt like a "slave" because of her husband's treatment during their life together.

He even kept tape recorders around their home so he would know if she or their children were talking about him.

They had met and married in Yorkshire but from their first night together, spent in his home country, he became a different person, sexually and physically abusing her.

Back in the UK he once raped her to get her pregnant to provide better mitigation in court when he was being prosecuted for assisting people to enter the country illegally.

On his first night out of prison from serving a jail term for that offence he raped her again.

Jailing the 41-year-old man yesterday, Judge Sally Cahill QC said he was an asylum seeker when he first met his wife who was a vulnerable young mother.

"I am quite satisfied you married her in order to try and stay in this country."

He was however deported after completing a sentence for attempted robbery and when she joined him abroad she first began to suffer his"violent, cruel and demeaning" treatment.

He raped her and succeeded in getting her pregnant when he selfishly thought it might assist his case when facing criminal charges and raped her again after his release from prison.

Eventually she was so terrified she did a "moonlight flit" with her children leaving all their belongings behind.

The judge commended Det Con Kelly Finlay for her investigation and said she hoped it would encourage women to come forward in such situations.

The defendant was found guilty by a jury on two charges of raping his wife, who cannot be identified, and one of indecent assault. He denied the attacks ever happened.

Derek Duffy, defending, him told the judge yesterday he still maintained those denials and pointed out the chances which his wife had to leave him but did not take.

Neil Clark, prosecuting, had told the jury the woman met her future husband while visiting someone in prison.

She began to visit him and he asked her to marry him. She thought he was "lovely" and although she had some doubts went ahead with it.

He was, however, deported after completing his sentence. She was pressured to join him and eventually agreed. But from the first night abroad with her husband she was subjected to physical and sexual abuse.

They decided to return to the UK but initially he was refused entry and she arrived alone. She then discovered his brother had continued living at her address using her name and that someone had been claiming benefits in her name.

By the time she sorted that out her husband had joined her, telling her he had arrived on the back of a lorry. They lived in Leeds but when the authorities traced him he was again deported.

He eventually got a 12 months entry visa to return to the UK and moved back in with her.

During the period that followed she was subjected to a horrific and painful sexual assault by him and then discovered he had given her a sexually transmitted disease.

Returning from one trip to his family abroad she described him

smuggling in a nephew under blankets in their vehicle.

He then made her go with him to Brussels, planning to bring in more illegal immigrants, but they were caught.