A DRUG addict held a school teacher hostage at knifepoint in her Needham Market home and demanded her bank cards to fund his next fix, a court has heard.

Lizzie Parry

A DRUG addict held a school teacher hostage at knifepoint in her Needham Market home and demanded her bank cards to fund his next fix, a court has heard.

Martin Wilcox of School Street, Needham Market, was sentenced to five years in prison at Ipswich Crown Court yesterday after pleading guilty to false imprisonment and robbery.

The 53-year-old turned up at the home of his victim at 5.15am on Saturday, July 4 after smoking crack cocaine with his prostitute girlfriend.

The 30-year-old woman was subjected to a terrifying 20-minute ordeal in her own home.

The woman, who knew Wilcox, had answered the front door to him wearing only her dressing gown.

After getting the number of Wilcox's ex-wife for him, she found him holding an eight-inch kitchen knife taken from the her own knife block.

He demanded her bank cards and pin numbers. Reasoning with her captor the 30-year-old handed over her cards, giving him two digits of her pin, with the promise of the remaining two if he left the house.

Naomi Turner, prosecuting, read out the victim's statement describing how she thought Wilcox was going to rape her, feared he may cut her face, and repeatedly told her he was going to hit her.

He forced her into her living room, face down on the floor tying her wrists behind her back as well as bounding her ankles together with tights.

As he disappeared back upstairs to find more tights she managed to get one foot free and dashed towards the front door trying to escape.

As she did he came back downstairs and the victim said he just gave up, walking out the front door.

The terrified victim said she believed Wilcox to be capable of anything and was so frightened after the ordeal she cannot sleep alone in her house and is contemplating moving away from the area.

She said: “I believed I was a strong, confident person before this but he has knocked me down.”

Upon his release from prison in January 2007 for fraud, stealing more than �870,000 from AXA Insurance and �100,000 from his previous employer Highway Direct Ltd, Wilcox's life spiralled out of control. He started a relationship with a prostitute addicted to drugs and became addicted to crack cocaine.

Judge Peter Fenn, sentencing, spoke of the “huge psychological impact” on the victim.