INSIDE CRAIGAVON’S ‘HOUSE OF HORRORS’
HOME OF CRUEL DUO WHO ABUSED VULNERABLE WOMAN FOR YEARS
THE first images have emerged of a vile ‘House of Horrors’ where a Craigavon couple kept a mentally disabled woman imprisoned as a sex slave for years.
Last October twisted Keith (61) and Caroline (54) Baker pleaded guilty to the repeated rape and sexual abuse of their victim over eight years.
They are to be sentenced tomorrow.
At the weekend it was reported that the pair also allowed dozens of other men to abuse their vulnerable victim, “rewarding” her with Quality Street sweets.
The newly-released images give little insight into the torture the couple subjected their helpless victim to at their Drumellen Mews home, which has since been redecorated.
The gruesome pair kept their victim in squalid conditions, forcing her to use a toilet overflowing with human waste, and preventing her from leaving her tiny room by removing the door handle on the inside.
When she was rescued, she had only one sound tooth, and was “severely emaciated”. She was kept in a bedroom with no light bulb, carpet, bedclothes or furniture. The room was cold as the radiator was never turned on, and had only a broken wardrobe for furniture.
Last year Keith Baker pleaded guilty to 11 charges and his wife Caroline to seven.
The Bakers confessed to the three charges they jointly faced, two of engaging in sexual activity with a mentally disabled person and one of inciting such a person to engage in sexual activity knowing that she had such a disorder and “knowing that because of it she was unlikely to refuse”.
Keith Baker admitted a further six counts of rape of the same woman and a final count of indecently assaulting the woman. Caroline Baker pleaded guilty to three offences of “aiding and abetting, counselling and procuring” her husband to rape their victim and a single count of indecent assault, with all of the offences against the couple occurring on dates between March 15, 2004 and December 20, 2012.
The offences came to light when another woman, known only as Miss X, alerted the authorities that a woman was being held hostage at the Bakers’ home.
The court heard that Mrs Baker and Miss X had given birth to four children to Keith Baker and that in the two adjoining semi-detached houses “men lived in one half and the women in the other”.
Video recordings and still images showing the victim engaged in sexual activity with Mr Baker, his wife and the woman who alerted the authorities were found on computers, cameras and storage devices seized by police.
During police questioning Keith Baker initially claimed he had no idea what went on in that half of the house and that he had “rescued” his victim her from an “abusive relationship in England”.
He told police they were in a “consensual” sexual relationship and that his victim was the instigator of any sexual trysts.
Caroline Baker also admitted sexual activity but, like her husband, claimed it had been consensual and that the victim had been the instigator. She also claimed she suffered from “battered wife syndrome”, after being physically and emotionally abused by her husband for years.