Wife arrested after nagging gym-addict husband to clean house says ‘I only asked him to vacuum’
A WIFE has told how she was thrown in a windowless cell after nagging her gym-addict husband to clean the house.
Valerie Sanders, 59, claimed she only asked Michael, 58, "to vacuum the house, make me a cup of tea and wipe marks off the patio doors".
But she was prosecuted for "controlling behaviour".
After 14 months of "hell", the case collapsed in June moments before a trial was due to start.
Last April she was shocked when four men arrived at her two-bed house in Catterick, North Yorkshire, and put her in the back of a police van.
Mum-of-two Valerie was drive to Harrogate police station where she was stripped of her possessions, finger-printed and put in a windowless cell overnight.
Valerie was charged with controlling and coercive behaviour towards Michael — an offence that became a crime in December 2015 to try and tackle non-physical abuse in domestic relationships.
Cleaning firm boss Valerie said she was treated "like a criminal" just for nagging her bodybuilder husband to do some vacuuming and claimed he spent hours at the gym or washing his car rather than help out at home.
She said she left notes for her 16st spouse to do chores at the house they shared with two dogs — until cops were called in.
She told the Daily Mail: "If that’s nagging, I’ll hold my hands up to it. But asking your husband to vacuum is not, in my eyes, a criminal offence."
The trial collapsed when a key witness - a Job Centre employee Michael had told about his marital woes and who passed the information to the cops - didn't turn up and Michael changed his mind about the prosecution.
All charges were dropped in exchange for Valerie accepting a two-year restraining order, which she regrets accepting, saying: "I wish I’d never taken it. I wish I’d had my day in court."
She added: "I appreciate our marriage was on the rocks but for Mike to treat me the way he did, after all the love and care I put into the relationship, was devastating."
GYM OBSESSED
The couple met online in 2012 and married two years later.
After being made redundant as a CCTV operator, Michael got a job as a gym manager.
Valerie, who has two grown-up daughters, said he then became obsessed with bodybuilding.
She recalled: "He was training all the time. He was eating five or six meals a day and mushing up all his food in the blender.
“We stopped going out for meals. I was working and he was at the gym from early in the morning until late at night. I just didn’t see him. If he wasn’t in the gym he was washing his car for hours.
"He started to do bodybuilding competitions. It wasn’t attractive. It was like cuddling an ironing board. He started to take Viagra because he said he couldn’t get an erection, blaming the steroids.
“But when he took the tablets it made him sniffy and snotty so I refused to sleep with him.”
Their sex life dwindled from once a week, to once a month, before stopping altogether.
Rare to hit court
COERCIVE or controlling behaviour within intimate or family relationships became a criminal offence in December 2015.
It followed a campaign to address non-physical abuse. Figures show 97 per cent of those prosecuted are men.
In the first two-and-a-half years since it came in, there were 7,034 arrests — but only 1,157 charges and 235 convictions.
Jobcentre staff carrying out a routine check noticed Michael’s mood had changed for the worse — and he blamed his home life.
In April 2018 staff told police who turned up soon after at their house.
Valerie said: "I was taken to the station and locked in a cell. I’ve never been in trouble. I was horrified. I felt like a criminal."
Her cell had a mattress, a bench and stainless steel toilet.
She was charged the next day and recalled: "I had my house keys taken away. I had to stay at a friend’s mum’s."
She denied being “coercive or controlling”, insisting: “I’d leave a note asking him to vacuum parts of the house and clean the patio doors. We have two miniature dachshunds. But he would spend four hours cleaning his car – so of course I complained.
“Surely it isn’t controlling behaviour otherwise every married couple would be in court?”
'SCARED'
The only time she saw Michael, who filed for divorce shortly after her arrest, was days later when, accompanied by a police escort, she returned to the marital home to pick up clothes.
Valerie said she felt anxious in the months that followed.
She "didn’t dare" talk to mutual friends who sided with her husband, and felt increasingly anxious about her upcoming court case.
She said: "I was scared, devastated and worried it would affect my business."
But she added: "I knew I hadn’t done anything wrong. I had nothing to hide."
Valerie is now renting a home in Catterick with her new boyfriend Tony, 33, also a cleaner, who helped her in the aftermath of her arrest.
As for Michael, she said: "He’s a nobody to me after what he put me through."
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But Michael hit back: "I’m not sure if she should have gone to court or not. That was not my decision – but she was controlling. She was constantly on at me.
“She used to leave the vacuum out or the polish and wanted me to clean every day because of the dogs.”
Michael, also a former prison officer, claimed Valerie initially encouraged the bodybuilding — and then the complaints started.
He said: “She said I was training too much and didn’t like the diet I was on.”
Michael claimed he had a hormone issue and needed Viagra which “made me congested”.
He went on: “She’d say I couldn’t go anywhere near her like that. That made me feel worse. She didn’t like me cleaning my car. She would leave notes to me about the cleaning. At the finish I was feeling ill.”
Michael plans to continue on the over-55s bodybuilding circuit.
He said: “There was no love any more. She used to kiss and cuddle her two dogs, but never kissed and cuddled me.”
