A husband who endured his wife’s violence for 20 years has spoken out about the traumatic years.

Sheree Spencer, a senior official at the Ministry of Justice and a mother of three young daughters, was given a four-year prison term last week at Hull Court.

It was “the worst case of dominating and coercive behaviour,” the court remarked.

Richard Spencer claimed in an interview with Dailymail reporter Rebecca Hardy on the sentencing: “I felt absolutely nothing the few times I gazed across at Sheree. I was not enraged. I didn’t experience fear. I felt nothing at all.

“But I was hyper-conscious of how my family was reacting when the judge described the horrific things she’d done. 

“To hear the judge use the same language Sheree used — the f-word and the c-word — the things she called me like ‘bitch’ and knowing my family were hearing those things was . . .” He  stops as he struggles to find the words. 

“When I think about those memories, I don’t feel associated to them. It’s like they happened to someone else. I know it was me but, in my mind, I can’t understand how I could have allowed that to happen.” 

During the two decades of abuse, he was subjected to daily beatings and verbal attacks that left him cowering on the floor in the foetal position. 

This is the first time Richard has relived his 20-year ordeal at the hands of his wife Sheree, a senior project manager for HM Prison and Probation Service who boasted to friends of meetings with former prime minister Boris Johnson. 

Last week, she was sentenced to four years in prison at Hull Crown Court after pleading guilty to coercive and controlling behaviour and three counts of assault occasioning actual bodily harm. 

Her campaign of violence and intimidation is almost too shocking to catalogue. She spat in his face. Hit him with whatever she had to hand — a bottle, a mobile phone, a TV remote control. 

On one occasion, she defecated on the floor, then forced him to clear it up. On another, she beat him with a wine bottle so hard it permanently disfigured his ear. 

Richard, 46, has a degree in computing at Leeds Metropolitan University and a position at BT in network design that soon saw him addressing global conferences as an expert in his field. Yet, that didn’t stop him from suffering extreme abuse. 

He shared photos of abuse which were captured on a security camera in the children’s playroom. 

In correspondent, Sheree’s uncontrolled fury was described as “the most terrifying ever witnessed.” 

She threatens him with a knife, drags him to the floor, kicks him, punches him. 

“Get the f***ing chicken on! Get to the f***ing shop,” she screams. “You will learn.” 

He cowers in the video and pleads with her to stop. 

When officers from Humberside police interviewed Richard at the family’s seven-bedroom home in a leafy village near York following Sheree’s arrest in June 2021, the investigating officer was so disturbed by what she heard she had to leave the room. 

“She was crying,” Richard recalls while weeping. 

“When the things that have happened to me upset someone else I feel guilty,” he explains. “I just feel that no normal person would have let that happen.” 

He recalls: “It wasn’t the best of days. Sheree got drunk and angry with the people who came to do her hair and told them to get out.  

“I made an excuse in my mind that she was being like that because of the pressure of the day. I even said to her, ‘Everyone has butterflies’. 

“Believe it or not, I felt marriage was a natural progression. When we came back, I wanted to think of it as a fresh start.  

“But we never really got back on track.” 

The violence escalated, particularly when, year after year, they tried unsuccessfully to start a family. 

“She’d say to me, ‘When I have a baby, I’ll be happy. I won’t mind you working all those hours.’ We actually had a phrase for it ‘baby dance’ and sometimes I had to ‘dance’ twice a day. 

“If I wasn’t physically able, she’d say things like, ‘All you’ve got to do is perform. You’re not a man.’ 

“As she got more desperate she got really angry. She’d talk about my size to insult me. I resorted then to getting Viagra-type drugs online. There weren’t any pleasurable feelings.” 

After three fruitless years, they decided upon IVF. When the third cycle failed in February 2014, Sheree’s violent explosions increased. 

So much so that in April Richard was admitted to A&E requiring stitches after Sheree smashed a wine glass on his head.  

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