The family of a woman sent to jail for accusing her husband of rape and then falsely dropping the charges against him yesterday told the Guardian that she had been in an abusive and "volatile" relationship for 10 years.

The 28-year-old was sentenced to eight-months in prison on Friday for perverting the course of justice – not for lying about the rape, but for lying by saying it never happened.

This lie was told, the court heard, following a torrent of "emotional blackmail" from and her estranged husband and his sister urging her to retract the allegations. She later changed her mind again, telling police she had been raped six times.

Today, her family explained how she ended up in a cell in Styal prison, near Manchester. It was, they say, the miserable end result of a "volatile" relationship, in which she was controlled completely by a jealous and violent husband who was so domineering that he could bully his wife into saying and doing almost anything.

The pair met around 10 years ago, according to the woman's older sister, who, like everyone involved in this case, cannot be named for legal reasons. Around four years into the relationship, after the birth of the couple's second child, he hit her for the first time. "That was when she started wearing scarves," said the sister, "to cover up all the bruises,"

The sister said the jailed woman's marriage had been plagued by violence.

"It was a very volatile relationship and there were lots of arguments. He verbally and physically assaulted her on numerous occasions that I know of, and the police were called several times, most recently just two weeks ago," said the older sister.

She claims that on the evening of 28 October this year, some months after being kicked out of the family home, the husband turned up at the house and managed to get into the property while his estranged wife and young children were watching TV.

"He pulled her outside by her hair and pushed her into the garden fence, before ripping her clothes off. One of her older children later told the police he saw her run back into the house with no clothes on," the sister said.

He was arrested and the child and mother were interviewed, but no charges were brought.

The woman's solicitor told the Guardian that in September, the husband had been arrested after breaking his way into the house in the early hours of the morning. He was released on conditional bail, forbidding him from going near her or the house, but the Crown Prosecution Service decided not to press charges. The restraining order was lifted on 28 October – the day of the latest alleged attack.

The older sister said she was physically sick on Friday when at Mold crown court Judge John Rogers QC sentenced her younger sibling to an eight-month prison sentence. "It was horrendous. Everyone we had spoken to beforehand had suggested that because [my sister] had no previous record of criminality and was the main carer for her four young sons, she wouldn't get sent to prison.

"We were aware of the seriousness of the offence, but we thought she would get a suspended sentence and a supervision order, not a jail sentence."

Though the husband did not attend court on Friday, the sister said she spoke to him over the weekend. "He said, 'I'm as gutted as everyone else.'"

The jailed woman has never received any counselling for her ordeal, said the sister. "Victim Support said they couldn't be involved because she was the perpetrator [accused of lying to police]. Now she is in jail, away from her kids."

And it seems unlikely her husband will ever stand trial on the rape charges: the charges against him have been dropped, the Crown Prosecution Service said today.

Her solicitors launched an appeal against her sentence, and is applying for her to be released from jail on bail, pending the appeal.

The Guardian contacted the woman's husband's solicitor for a response to the allegations made by his in-laws but did not receive a response by the time of going to press.