A ‘sadistic’ wife forced her husband to live in squalor with sixty chihuahuas, making him clean up their faeces barefoot and locking him in their kennel during a year-long campaign of torture, a Belgian court has heard.
Anna VDV, 47, emerged in the dock at Turnhout courthouse on Wednesday, crying as prosecutors laid out an extraordinary chronicle of barbarity allegedly foisted on the man she married in 2024.
The court was shown shocking photographs demonstrating what the prosecutor conveyed as the husband’s descent from ‘a healthy partner at the beginning of the relationship to a burned skeleton’.
The abuse only ended on March 18, when the victim managed to escape the home and desperately bashed on neighbours’ doors for help.
They found him hypothermic, confused and covered in injuries – prompting an urgent call to police, De Telegraaf reports.
Prosecutors said VDV attempted immediately to control the narrative, climbing into the ambulance and claiming her husband was depressed and had harmed himself.
Paramedics noticed the man tense up in her presence and ordered her to leave, the court heard.
During the journey, the frightened victim initially said he had been beaten for a month – but later revealed the abuse had lasted a full year.
He told investigators he was assaulted daily with fists or objects until he collapsed.
The couple’s home was reportedly overrun with sixty chihuahuas. The husband was expected to groom the dogs, clean their faeces barefoot and use caustic chemicals, the court heard.
VDV allegedly hid his shoes and installed cameras to watch him at all times. If he paused his cleaning, she would yell at him remotely to continue. He was not permitted to leave the house unless supervised.
‘That’s not work, it’s slavery,’ the prosecutor said.
The court heard VDV repeatedly locked her husband in a garden shed, dog run, kennel and even a pitch-black cellar without food or water.
Two weeks before his escape, she allegedly poured boiling water over him because two of the dogs had died, and she blamed him.
The victim was totally alone, jobless, in debt, and illiterate.
Prosecutors said VDV confiscated his mobile phone and cut off contact with his children. Neighbours noticed his injuries, but were told he was self-harming due to depression.
But VDV’s own phone reportedly told a different story – storing pictures of injuries, audio recordings of verbal abuse, video clips of her laughing as he struggled to dress himself, and messages barring him from contacting his daughters.
A medical report confirmed extensive wounds, burns, hypothermia and damage to subcutaneous tissue.
Long-term maltreatment is consistent with the fact that many injuries were older than five days.
Prosecutors have requested an eight-year prison term. The victim’s lawyer is seeking €10,000 in provisional damages.
VDV’s own lawyer, Romy Geysen, called it ‘the least sympathetic case of my entire career’, but argued her client recognises her wrongdoing and is ashamed.
She blamed financial chaos, an exploding dog population and ‘relationship context’ for the abuse.
Geysen urged the court not to impose a long prison sentence, saying her client complied with all conditions following her release after three months in custody.
The verdict is due on January 7.
This man couldn’t read or write, so his wife had clearly been manipulating him because of his learning difficulties – not even animals do that to other animals. However, the female of the species can be deadlier than the male, though not as often.
I understand that this offence did not occur in the UK or any other country, other than Belgium, but first, the dogs should be neutered and adopted out. Secondly, this man needs someone to be assigned to him as his guardian, and third, he needs to divorce this psychopath.
She needs to go to prison for at least 15 years, no early release, no probation, nothing. Lastly, he should get everything she owns to do what he wants with it. Sell it, keep it, donate it or burn it. This woman is a dreadful human being.
She is just a terrible, deranged person, and what she did to this man is abhorrent.
Sadly, there is a lot of Domestic Violence against men, but men have nowhere to go – women are encouraged to fight back, but how does a man do that?
All I can really say to this is, be careful who you marry!
THE MONTHLY MOSQUITO 