A man who, with his partner, inflicted years of brutal cruelty on seven children has been jailed for 4½ years. The woman received two years imprisonment for her part in one of the worst cases of violent neglect heard in Northern Ireland.
The campaign of abuse only came to light with the suspected suicide of one of the victims.
The couple from Co Armagh stood expressionless yesterday as Mr Justice Girvan told how they refused to accept their regime of terror contributed to one abused youngster apparently killing himself.
Even though his partner confessed her guilt mid-trial, the man denied to the end he had beaten the children, some on a near-daily basis, for more than a decade.
The judge told Antrim Crown Court, sitting in Belfast: "He must have taken some pleasure from the violence and degree of control it gave him over the children." One of the youngest victims was threatened with being shot or stabbed if he told the authorities about the abuse.
Neither of the couple, who ran a house which prosecutors called rotten to the core, can be named to protect the victims' identities.
Some of the children were in court to see their tormentors put behind bars. However they were dismayed the pair, who could have been jailed for a maximum of 10 years, had not received harsher punishment.
Fighting back tears, one boy said: "It wasn't long enough for me. What happened was so, so bad. I can't even describe it and it's so hard to take."
Harrowing evidence was given during the 27-day trial of how the man would come home from work at night, ask which children had misbehaved and line them up in front of a fireplace in the so-called good room. Their trousers and pants were pulled down before they were beaten. As the children wept with pain, the woman told them they deserved everything they got.
Violence flared in the home with frightening regularity. Children were punched to the ground, kicked, knocked against furniture and into cupboards or beaten with a hard rubber pipe used to herd cattle.
One young victim was attacked for taking too much cheese for a sandwich, while another had a spade stuck in his leg for knocking over a sandcastle on a seaside holiday.
Giving evidence, the man had claimed the couple were the victims of a witch-hunt, with police, child-protection agencies and a family all involved in a conspiracy. The children had been brainwashed against him, he alleged.
The woman gave evidence on the man's behalf, claiming she was responsible for any discipline in the home which amounted to just a light slap, and that he only smacked one of the children once. - ( PA )