AN ABUSED wife was beaten, starved and smeared with a dirty nappy by her husband during a three-year marriage from hell.

Malkeet Singh was last week jailed for putting his wife through the ordeal behind the closed doors of their home in Glenwood Road, Catford.

Now the traumatised victim has broken her silence to tell News Shopper how she was treated like a "prisoner in her own home".

She has also revealed how her mother-in-law who lived with the couple acted as the ringleader during the catalogue of abuse.

The 24-year-old victim, who has asked to remain anonymous, wed Singh in October 2001 in an arranged marriage.

The couple moved in together and got on well at first.

However, wedded bliss soon gave way to a campaign of intolerable cruelty.

Singh, who is a painter and decorator, locked his wife in the house and made her go without food for days.

He also repeatedly beat her, tipped baby sick over her head and smeared a dirty nappy in her face while being egged on by his mother, Nerinder Kaur-Singh.

The victim said: "It is something which will stay with me for the rest of my life.

"I still have nightmares about it and I can't sleep properly at night. The whole thing was totally horrific.

"I was locked in the house and not allowed out for days. I was like a prisoner in my own home."

She says she was too scared to end the marriage but eventually walked out on her husband in June 2004 before reporting him to the police.

The mother-of-one says she was not against the idea of an arranged marriage and believes her ordeal was a case of "pure abuse".

She has come forward to convince other victims of domestic violence to stand up for themselves.

The housewife, who has now moved from the area, said: "The experience has changed me for the better. I am a much stronger person.

"Justice has been served. They deserve everything they have got."

Singh, aged 24, was found guilty of inflicting actual bodily harm.

His mother Kaur-Singh, aged 43, was also found guilty of inflicting actual bodily harm.

They had both pleaded not guilty but were convicted by a jury.

Both were sentenced to 18 months in jail at Woolwich Crown Court on June 9.