A woman held hostage in a Bournemouth house has spoken out about her terrifying ordeal.

Zoe Mitchell, who is now 25, was bound and gagged after her former flatmates Marc Bird and Victoria Hall lured her back to her flat last December when she left without paying rent.

She was told her head would be shaved if she went to sleep and feared her hands would be cut off by drug dealers.

Miss Mitchell, who left Bournemouth after the horrific incident, said: “It was mental and physical abuse, even before they actually tied me up.

“I couldn’t defend myself. I didn’t want to go to the police because I was so frightened, but my friends managed to talk me into it. I was frozen with fear the whole time.”

Bird, a personal trainer who was addicted to methadrone, taped Miss Mitchell’s arms and legs together and told her that her jaw would be broken.

He punched her in the face, and Hall also jumped on top of her, punching her face and head as well as kicking her ribs.

Miss Mitchell, who had only been living with Bird and Hall for a month at the time of the attack, said: “At one point, Marc had a panic attack.

“He started breathing really strangely, and he said he’d been awake for six days and was on methadrone. He told me, ‘I’m going to have a heart attack, but I’m going to kill you in the 30 seconds before I die’. It was like something out of a horror film for me.”

She managed to escape when another housemate heard her scream.

“Because they both pleaded guilty, I didn’t have to go to court and relive it,” she said.

• Chaotic life in drug den

BIRD and Hall both entered early guilty pleas to the charges of false imprisonment and assault by beating, and were sentenced to 27 months each at Bournemouth Crown Court in July.

Judge John Harrow told the pair: “It is clear that you had a chaotic lifestyle in what seems to have been a drugs den.

“Zoe owed you money and you were determined to extract it from her. This was a terrifying ordeal which is bound to have some lasting effect on her psychologically.”