The foster daughter of 'Britain's most sadistic mother' ended her own life because she was terrified that her mum might return to take her revenge, an inquest has heard.
Victoria Spry, 35, was subjected to sickening physical and mental torture for nearly 20 years by sick foster mother Eunice Spry.
Spry forced Victoria and two other children in her care to eat their own excrement and vomit.
She rammed sticks down the children's throats, rubbed their faces with sandpaper, and locked them naked in rooms for weeks at a time.
Victoria, who wrote a book called 'Torture' about her traumatic experiences, was found dead at her flat by her fiancé Anthony Smart on September 22 last year.
Spry was arrested when police raided her home in Tewkesbury in February 2005 and was convicted of 26 counts of child abuse against children in her foster care in April 2007.
Spry, now 76, was sentenced to fourteen years in jail, and ordered to pay £80,000 in damages. However, in 2014 she was released after 12 years in jail due to a reduced sentence on appeal.
Tamara Pascoe, a senior occupational therapist with the Gloucestershire Health and Care NHS Trust, said in a statement to her inquest: "Victoria had sadly had multiple referrals to psychiatric services since June 1997.
"She had a diagnosis of emotional unstable personality disorder in the context of significant childhood abuse and trauma."
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Assistant Gloucestershire Coroner Roland Wooderson said he had received a 74-page report from the NHS Trust about Victoria's troubled life.
He said: ''She feared her mother might make contact to exact revenge for her long custodial sentence.
''Her foster mother has been out of prison for several years and as from September 2018 she was free to enter Gloucestershire as the licence preventing her from so doing had expired.''
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Despite her horrendous ordeal, brave Victoria later worked with social workers to help them spot the signs of abuse.
The coroner recorded a conclusion of suicide, and said: "This is indeed a tragic death.
"I have been through the evidence and I have to say it is difficult to contemplate the mental anguish from which she suffered from a very early age.
"The documentation shows she endured a history of what can only be termed as horrendous abuse at the hands of her mother and uncle."
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As if the abuse had not been enough, Victoria also suffered life-changing injuries at the age of 14 in a car crash in which two of her siblings died, the coroner said.
"This is a tragic, dreadful, death," Mr Wooderson said.
"It is clear to me that as a result of the tragic circumstances and history of her life she intended to take her life that day."
Her foster brother, Christopher, had previously said Victoria wanted to be remembered for her mission to help children.
Paying tribute to the BBC after her death last year, he said: "The work she was doing with the Gloucestershire Safeguarding Board and social services was because she wanted ours to be the last 'horror case' for Gloucestershire.
"I think her legacy will be the work she was doing to help the next wave of social workers to spot cases like ours earlier on."
She only escaped when she was allowed to accompany her younger brother to Eunice's Jehovah's Witness meetings in Tewkesbury, aged 17.
She broke down and told everything to a young couple in the group who smuggled her out the house just before Christmas 2004.
It took three weeks to build up the courage to tell the police.
In sentencing, the judge told Spry that it was the "worst case in his 40 years practising law".
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