I should feel safe in the house but domestic abuse doesn’t work like that. The effects last much longer than the bruises. My husband has made me prisoner in my own home

A CLAUSTROPHOBIC woman imprisoned in a cupboard by her abusive husband is now too scared to leave home after he was released from jail.

Lainey Patterson had her hair set alight by thuggish spouse Robert, who also threatened to kill her pet dog.

Patterson, 42, forced Lainey into a cupboard – even though she suffered from a fear of enclosed spaces – before igniting a can of hair spray and aiming it at her, setting her hair on fire.

He was jailed for eight months after he admitted making threats and possessing a knife.

Patterson is also subject to a five-year non-harassment order to protect the 52-year-old, who suffered a year of hell at his hands.

But Lainey, from Tarbolton, Ayrshire, wants to highlight how the ordeal of domestic abuse has aftereffects that can linger permanently.

Despite years having passed, she still lives in constant fear.

She said: “I know he isn’t allowed to contact me and I know that in my own home with my door locked I should feel safe. But domestic abuse doesn’t always work like that. The effects you can’t see last much longer than the bruises.

“It’s the emotional and mental abuse, the breakdown and the chipping away at who you are that has the lasting effect.

“My husband broke my confidence down. My self worth, so much so, I began to question who I was.

“I don’t go out now, I’ve given up so many things that I loved and that made me who I was. I’m like a prisoner in my own home.”

Lainey first spoke out in the Record in October 2014 and revealed how Patterson’s bullying appeared to have been sparked by his own