Caroline Baker struck-off

Caroline Baker, 54, was removed from the Northern Ireland Social Care Council (NISCC) register at a fitness to practise hearing in Belfast.

The determination effectively bars her from working with any vulnerable people in the sector for a minimum of five years.

She is currently serving a three-year sentence for her role in an horrific sexual abuse case in Craigavon, Co Armagh.

Together with her husband Keith Baker, she kept their victim in a squalid and filthy room for up to eight years.

The woman was so badly emaciated that she had only a single tooth in her mouth when police rescued her from the house in 2002.

Earlier this year Keith Baker, 61, was sentenced to 15 years in jail by a judge who described him as a “Svengali-type figure” whose wife was a “pawn doing his bidding”.

Caroline Baker was reportedly working as a social care worker at a home in Northern Ireland specialising in mental health residents until she was arrested.

She is currently serving half her sentence behind bars and did not attend last Friday’s NISCC proceedings.

A panel ruled that her fitness to practise was impaired by her convictions.

Full reasons for the decision to remove her registration will be published on the body’s website later this week.

An NISCC spokesperson confirmed the determination means Baker can only seek to re-register after five years.

But even then she must demonstrate that she is suitable for social care work and no longer poses a risk to the public.

The Bakers pleaded guilty to a catalogue of sex crimes against a woman with severe learning difficulties.

Their victim was locked in a tiny room with no handle on the inside, no light bulb, carpet or curtains.

A closed circuit TV had been suspended from a ceiling where she was held.

The only toilet she had access to in a home branded a “house of horrors” was overflowing with human waste.

She was not registered with a GP or a dentist and did not appear on the electoral register.

Neighbours were unaware she was even in the house where Keith Baker filmed many of the assaults for his own sexual gratification.

He had taken the woman from her home in England in 2004, when she was reported missing.

Eight years later she emerged from captivity, severely malnourished and weighing just six stone, after another woman involved with Keith Baker contacted police.