A former English National Opera stagehand forced his girlfriend to perform on a pornographic website and beat her while she was pregnant, a court heard.
Terence Wilson, 35, made his partner strip and perform sexual acts on the site, and used the money it generated to buy himself a BMW.
On Wednesday, Wilson was jailed for 16 months at Isleworth Crown Court in west London after a judge branded him a “violent, controlling, bully of a man” who made his victim’s life a “living hell”.
Bartholomew O’Toole, prosecuting, told the court that Wilson put his partner through four years of psychological and physical abuse between Jan 2016 and March 2020, including attacking her when she was 38 weeks pregnant.
The victim, who cannot be named for legal reasons, lost a total of £51,000 to Wilson, of Trafalgar Close, Peacehaven, East Sussex. She alerted the police on March 30 2020, after pretending she was going to Tesco.
Threats to brand victim ‘a bad mother’
Two Metropolitan Police officers met her at the supermarket and sent officers to her address who arrested Wilson.
Reading her victim impact statement from behind a screen, the woman said Wilson threatened to “smear” her and that she had to use food banks to feed her children as a result of the financial exploitation.
She said: “When I eventually had nothing left to give, he only found new ways to exploit me, he devised a scheme to effectively sell myself online, the funds of which he would take from me.
“He then used this against me to threaten to smear me as a bad mother.”
Wilson previously served a two-year prison sentence for assaulting his partner on Dec 4 2019, slamming her to the ground, stamping on her head and picking up a baseball bat which she thought he was going to use on her.
He has a string of at least nine other convictions for violence that date back to 2012.
In Feb 2020, he received a suspended sentence for assaulting another woman during his relationship and in 2012, he stabbed a neighbour in the arm.
Judge Fiona Barrie said Wilson controlled every aspect of his victim’s life. She said: “You demanded that she pay her income into an account you controlled, ironically an account in the name of another woman you were in a relationship with and were violent towards.
Disgraceful and disturbing
“You coerced her to sign up to a pornographic website and to strip and perform sexual acts upon herself on live broadcast.
“All the while, you were not working, you were spending time at home using drugs, not making an effort to create an income for your children and your family.
‘That is shameful, disgraceful, and frankly disturbing behaviour.”
Wilson admitted one count of controlling or coercive behaviour in an intimate or family relationship, and one count of assault occasioning actual bodily harm.
