By: Chandrashekar Bhat
A domestic servant has accused her wealthy landlady of subjecting her to violence and mental cruelty that drove her close to suicide.
Jacqueline Whittington, 60, claimed Farzana Kausar made her work as an “unpaid slave” for for 14 hours day.
Lewes Crown Court in East Sussex heard that Whittington, 60, had never been paid a penny since 2004 when she had met her employer.
The “shocking” treatment of the live-in helper came to light when a nanny hired by Kausar raised an alarm. It led to Kausar’s arrest in Hove. She has been charged with holding Whittington in slavery or servitude between August 2015 and May 2019.
Whittington said in a video interview played to the court that Kausar, 58, was a violent person who “pinched, poked, prodded and kicked” her.
“She went for me all the time,” the mother-of-four said in the video reported by Mail Online.
“She went for me in the car, slammed the door on my foot and fractured my ankle,” the domestic servant said, accusing her employer of hiding her hospital letters to deny her appointments.
“She ripped off a necklace her mum had given me for Christmas, smashed my glasses, (and) scratched the side of my face,” Whittington said, adding she was also once pulled over the table by her hair.
She said her day would start at 8 am and she would “cook, clean, wash, iron, cook dinner, do the washing up until 10 pm”. When she asked for pay, the employer said it was put in her bank account. But the domestic servant said she never saw the money.
“I’ve become an ill nervous wreck. If it wasn’t for those beautiful children I would be dead by now.”
She said she came “close to killing myself because I can’t take anymore but won’t due to those kids.”
Whittington, a vulnerable alcoholic estranged from her family, first met Kausar when the latter was living in a flat in Worthing in East Sussex.
When the domestic servant went to London to carry out decorating for her employer’s family, she was told she wasn’t wanted back in Worthing and would instead be housed in London.
Shortly afterwards she moved in with Kausar, her husband Mohammed Hanif and their young daughter Isla, Mail Online reported.
Whittington said Kausar intimidated her and treated her like “a little piece of dirt on the ground.”
“She says if you don’t do this, don’t do that I’ll f*****g kill you’,” she quoted her employer as telling her. But she admitted the landlady bought her wine and tobacco.
Kausar, who now has three children, has denied Whittington’s allegations.
