Child protection agencies yesterday appealed for a new body to investigate the organised abuse of children after nine men and women were jailed for a series of sex offences against children as young as three.
In three linked trials a court heard that the abusers spent more than 35 years raping and torturing two generations of boys and girls from the same family.
The elderly couple at the centre of the case forced their children to have sex with family, friends and neighbours. Judge William Taylor told them they were guilty of "wickedness beyond belief". He said: "You have been convicted of the worst abuse of children contemplated by the criminal law."
When police and social workers finally started to investigate the abuse two years ago they found that the children had twice tried to raise the alarm more than 30 years ago but were ignored.
Mr Mike Taylor, director of children's services for the NSPCC, said the case was one of the most horrific the society had ever seen.
"What we need is a national infrastructure of investigation services so that in any part of the country in which complex or organised abuse is being investigated there is a skilled social work service available to undertake that investigation alongside the police," he said.
The west country court heard that the elderly couple at the centre of the case corrupted each of their seven children, forcing them to abuse each other. As adults some of the victims also became abusers. Four of the couple's granddaughters were subjected to sex attacks by their own parents and by the grandparents.
Sentencing the grandfather - whom he described as the prime mover - to 25 years on 26 counts of rape, buggery and indecent assault against his children and grandchildren, the judge said two of his victims were still receiving counselling and another was still mutilating herself in an effort to cleanse herself.
Judge Taylor told the grandmother she had totally abrogated her responsibility as a parent. He said she had selected the children for abuse, held them down while they were raped, scrubbed them with Vim, salt and Brillo pads and had sat and laughed while her husband abused his grandchildren. He jailed her for 14 years.
Jailing the couple's second son for 14 years for the rape and buggery of his nieces and the indecent assault of his own daughters, the judge said that he took into account that the man had been abused and encouraged to abuse as a boy.
This son's wife was jailed for five years for assisting in the rape and buggery of their nieces and for indecently assaulting her own children.
One of the elderly couple's daughters received a suspended sentence after admitting that she had helped her father to rape her adolescent daughter. Her husband received 18 years on 15 counts of rape, buggery and indecent assault against his daughters and nieces.
One of the elderly couple's neighbours was jailed for 16 years. The judge said the man had taken particular pleasure in causing pain to the children. A family cousin who took part in the abuse by taking photographs was jailed for five years. The elderly couple's oldest son was jailed for three years for raping his eight-year-old sister at knifepoint when he was 16.