An abusive wife who assaulted, taunted, threatened and humiliated her husband for 20 years has been sentenced to four years in prison.
Sheree Spencer, aged 45 and a mum of three, punched, kicked, slapped and bit her husband Richard during persistent ‘nasty’ attacks that left him cowering on the floor in the foetal position and feeling trapped.
On one occasion she defecated on the floor and forced him to clean it up, and on another she beat him with a wine bottle so hard it permanently disfigured his ear. DailyMail reports.
The assaults included kicking, punching, hitting, biting and spitting at him. She also damaged his laptops, phones and clothes.
She called him a ‘p****’ every day while beating him and forced him to clean up her faeces.
Spencer who worked as a prison security guard was sentenced at Hull Crown Court after leaving her partner with a permanently disfigured ear and damaging his laptops, phones and clothes.
Before sentencing her, Judge Kate Rayfield told her that the abuse of her husband was ‘the worst case of controlling and coercive behaviour I have seen’.
As well as a prison term, Spencer was given an indefinite restraining order against her victim.
Despite her sentencing, Spencer was still seen smiling as she left the dock to be taken down to the cells.
She worked at the highest levels for HM Prison and Probation Service and bragged to friends that she had the ear of former Prime Minister Boris Johnson.
It was described as ‘a great irony’ that Spencer had done so much work aimed at investigating the effect of custodial sentences on the family.
Spencer admitted coercive and controlling behaviour between January 2016 and June 2021 and three offences of assaulting her husband, causing actual bodily harm, between January and April 2020.
Michele Stuart-Lofthouse, prosecuting, said that the couple had been together since 2000 and lived in Bubwith, near Selby, in UK at the time.
They have three young children. Even after she was arrested, Spencer continued to ‘exert control’ over Richard during Family Court hearings, claiming she was the victim.
While sharing his story in court Spencer said: ‘I have had to seek help from my GP on several occasions.’
Videos shown to the court revealed ‘persistent, nasty physical and emotional abuse’ sometimes several times in a day.
For years he secretly recorded video and audio of his wife’s attacks on him and when police became involved he handed over 43 images of his bruised face, taken on different dates following savage assaults he had suffered.
Mr Spencer would email them to himself and delete them from his phone so his wife didn’t realise he was recording her violent assaults.
Spencer ‘cowered sometimes on his hands and knees on the floor’ as he was threatened and assaulted.
His wife showed ‘utter contempt for him’ and sometimes ‘whispered in his face in the most sinister way’, the court heard.
She was also said to shout orders at him after drinking three bottles of wine a day. Her defense lawyer Richard Pratt KC said that there was ‘little if anything’ that could be said in mitigation.
Pratt said: ‘It’s a shocking, distressing case. Alcohol played the most significant part in what happened.’
