Foster mother guilty of abusing children

A foster mother has been found guilty of subjecting children to a "horrifying catalogue of cruel and sadistic treatment".

Eunice Spry, 62, of Tewkesbury, Gloucestershire, routinely beat, abused and starved the three youngsters in her care over a 19-year period.

The three victims, known as Victim A, B and C, all gave evidence describing how Spry, a Jehovah's Witness, forced sticks down their throats, scrubbed their skin with sandpaper and made them drink bleach and eat their own vomit and rat excrement.

Shedenied all the claims made against her and insisted the only physical punishment she ever used was "a smack on the bottom".

But a jury at Bristol Crown Court convicted her of 26 charges in total. They ranged from unlawful wounding, cruelty to a person under 16, assault occasioning actual bodily harm, perverting the course of justice and witness intimidation.

Kerry Barker, for the prosecution, said: "Most of the acts were carried out as punishment; others were inexplicable acts of cruelty."