The devout Jehovah's Witness forced sticks down their throats and made them eat their own vomit and rat excrement.
Ravyn, Lady Heresy
Sadistic foster mother's 19-year reign of terror
London Evening Standard | March 21, 2007
A foster mother was found guilty today of subjecting three young
children to a "horrifying catalogue of cruel and sadistic treatment".
Eunice Spry, 62, routinely beat, abused and starved the youngsters in
her care over a 19 year period. The devout Jehovah's Witness forced
sticks down their throats and made them eat their own vomit and rat
excrement.
Eunice Spry
Eunice Spry regularly beat and starved children in her care
As punishment for misbehaving, she would beat them on the soles of
their feet and force them to drink washing up liquid and bleach.
Spry, a pillar of her local community in Gloucestershire, staunchly
denied 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 of a series of charges.
During the four-week trial the jury heard some harrowing evidence
detailing how Spry had subjected the children to a regime of abuse.
The three victims, known as Victim A, B and C, all gave evidence
describing how their daily routines were punctuated by random acts of
bizarre and sadistic violence at the hands of their foster mother.
Kerry Barker, prosecuting, told how Victim A, now aged 21, was
imprisoned in a wheelchair by the woman following a car crash.
The child's hand has been rubbed raw with sandpaper
Spry had tried to stop Victim A from trying to walk again following
the crash so she could get more compensation money.
Victim B, also 21, told how her foster mother would pull her hair and
shove her face in her pet dog's faeces as punishment.
Victim C, now 18, described how his foster mother held his hand down
on a hot electric hob until it was left looking like a "gooey mess".
He said he had been force-fed so much washing up liquid by Spry that
he could now differentiate between the brands on taste alone.
The offences took place in two of Spry's homes in Gloucestershire
between 1986 and 2005. Mr Barker, had told the jury: "On hearing the
indictment the word that probably sticks in your mind is cruelty.
"That is what this case is about. It is a history of cruelty by Eunice
Spry who was an adoptive mother over a long period of time."
Eunice Spry
Face injuries of Victim A
The abuse was finally discovered after another Jehovah's Witness
secretly confronted the wheelchair-bound Victim A about marks to her
head caused when Spry rubbed sandpaper over her face.
Victim A finally plucked up the courage to report her foster mother to
the police who quickly interviewed Victim B and C.
Mr Barker added: "The outcome of the interviews was a horrifying
catalogue of cruel and sadistic treatment.
"Most of the acts were carried out as punishment; others were
inexplicable acts of cruelty."
He said the children would be regularly punished for minor acts of
misbehaviour.
Mr Barker explained: "They were made to eat lard and drink washing up
liquid poured down their throats.
Eunice Spry
They called it home: Spry's foster children lived in squalor, with
little in the way of comforts
"If they were sick (she) would make them eat the vomit and they were
made to eat rat excrement."
He said that Spry would regularly beat the children on the soles of
the feet with a "variety of sticks".
They would be "punched kicked and strangled", and if they cried the
sticks would be forced down their throats.
Mr Barker said Spry used unusual punishments such as making the
children lean against the side of a wall.
Eunice Spry
The bedrooms in which Eunice Spry's foster children slept were strewn
with rubbish
If they moved, the soles of their feet would again be beaten with the
sticks.
Full cans of food would be thrown directly in their faces and they
would have their heads forcibly held under the water while in the
bath.
Victim A told how when she was a young girl her foster mother had
fixed a sign to the back of one her dress to cause embarrassment in
public. The message read: "This child is evil. Do not look at her or
talk to her. She wets the bed and is an attention seeker."
Victim A was involved in a serious traffic accident in 2000. Doctors
told the girl, who suffered horrific injuries, that she would be
confined to a wheelchair for up to six months after the crash.
But medical experts who examined her soon found there was no physical
reason why she could not walk.
Spry refused a series of tests to find out what was behind the girl's
mysterious condition and deliberately hindered her recuperation in a
cynical bid to maximise the compensation payout she could get from
insurers.
In 2004, Child A fled from her foster mother and walked on the very
same day. She later confessed that Spry had forced her to remain in
the wheelchair since 2000.
Mr Barker said on one occasion Spry had forced Child C to place his
hand over an electric ring on a cooker causing blistering.
He added that Spry was able to conceal her alleged reign of abuse as
the children were home taught and not sent to school.
She has also terrified the children so much with her ritualistic abuse
that they were too frightened to alert the authorities.
Spry covered her tracks by forbidding them to be examined on their own
by doctors or dentists. She maintained her innocence throughout police
interviews and during the subsequent trial.