The three may have escaped justice if a damning diary detailing their abuse had not been discovered.

A diary kept by the female member of a trio who imprisoned an epileptic man in a garden shed in the south west of England desribes the torture and starvation the handyman suffered before his death.

Three people who tortured and imprisoned an epileptic man in a garden shed in Gloucestershire, were today given a total of 29 years in jail.