Most of the time, family reunions are thought of as heartwarming affairs - especially when those people have been estranged for many years. But for 29-year-old Emily Angus, meeting her long-lost stepbrother didn't feel like a lifetime movie. It was more like a nightmare. Because Emily discovered that her sibling wasn't the man she thought he was. He was, in actual fact, in her words, "a monster."
Emily found her stepbrother Anthony Hutchings on social media, having never met him in real life before. Her stepfather and Anthony's father, Steve Airey, had married Emily's mother when she was 12, and she basically thought of him as her real father. But she knew very little about his son from a previous marriage.
After sending him a friend request in 2015, Emily managed to make contact with him over the phone, and invited him to meet her in Herne Bay, Kent - as he was living in Northampton at the time. They met, and for a while all was well.
Yet the more Emily learned about Anthony, the more disturbed she was by his behaviour and lifestyle. He appeared to be a habitual drug user, and would often lie to her about seemingly-inconsequential things. After the birth of Emily's son, Anthony tried to be a doting uncle, but Emily didn't entirely trust him.
And it turns out she had good reason not to.
One night, Anthony came to visit, and appeared to be traumatised and jittery. Emily thought nothing of his odd behaviour, but then a friend called her to deliver horrifying news: Anthony had apparently held two women hostage and sexually assaulted them, and what's more was the police were looking for him. Emily called the police to inform them where Anthony was, and they arrested him shortly after.
Commenting on the morbid discovery, Emily stated: "I learned from the police, over the next few hours, that he’d held two women hostage, refusing to let them leave an outbuilding,” she explained.
“He’d repeatedly kicked and punched both of them, holding a machete to one woman’s throat. Then, he’d handed one of them a kitchen knife, forcing her to stab the other in the leg, before also hitting her across the face with a saw. It was so barbaric… savage.
"Both women’s injuries needed hospital treatment, but he refused to let them leave the property for more than two hours. The woman who was stabbed eventually managed to leave, but he subjected his other victim to further violence and abuse, making her swallow medication that wasn’t hers, raping her and assaulting her with a hammer. The details were sickening. Anthony was a monster."
Anthony Hutchings appeared at Canterbury Crown Court in December 2017, where he pled guilty to two counts of assault and one count of perverting the course of justice. He was convicted on charges of rape, false imprisonment, encouraging an offence, sexual assault, taking a vehicle without authority, and breaching a suspended sentence.
Despite the betrayal she feels regarding Anthony's crimes, Emily remains adamant that she did the right thing, and is glad that her brother will never be able to harm another person again.
