Cruel mum tormented ‘sinful’ kids
‘Righteous' Christian sadistically abused nine for 17 years
For nearly two decades nine children were abused by their mother to atone for their “sins”. They were starved, submerged overnight in cold swimming pools, ordered to run “punishment marathons”, and forced to wear signs which read “liar”.
To the outside world their mum was a devout Christian parent, homeschooling nine sons and daughters. On the inside, however, it was an isolated childhood of fear and pain.
The abuse only came to police attention in 2017 when the five eldest siblings had left home, nearly 20 years after the mistreatment started.
On Monday, the children watched as their emotionless mother, 52, was sent to prison. Throughout much of the sentencing hearing in the Auckland District Court, the woman, who cannot be named to protect her children’s identity, was in a statue-like state. Her only movements were to turn and eyeball her children and the Herald reporter.
Judge Nevin Dawson said the woman’s “punishments were prolonged and sadistic”. He jailed her for four years.
Six of the children gave evidence during their mother’s trial this year before she pleaded guilty halfway through to six charges of cruelty to children and two of assault on a child, one of which was representative. Further charges were withdrawn.
The children told of the cruel and bizarre punishments they got for their “sins”, often for simple things such as spilling something.
They had to stand with their heads against a wall, crawl on hands and knees for a day and withheld food and told to eat grass “like a sheep” or scum from the kitchen sink.
Their mother also built an 800m circuit for them to run on for hours. Sometimes they were forced to run nude and while holding bricks above their heads in summer until they began vomiting and suffered heatstroke symptoms, the court heard.
The children, some as young as 5 when abused, were also repeatedly thrown down stairs. One, now in her mid-20s, said she still suffered the physical and psychological consequences of growing up under her “righteous” mother’s influence.
“I am still learning that I am not stupid, disgusting, dumb and a servant,” she said during the sentencing hearing.
The eldest daughter said her mother lied “inside and outside the family” to manipulate her children’s relationships: “We constantly lived under a cloud of her control. We had no privacy, we had no rights.”
She had suffered “major emotional underdevelopment”.
“It is not right that we grew up with a sense of normality about the abuse,” she said. “I cannot see that she will have any kind of a mother’s place in our lives.”
The eldest daughter required hearing aids in both ears, due to damage doctors believed was caused by being slapped across the head by her mum.
Another daughter, now in her early 20s, said she questioned what a normal childhood was: “Whether it is normal for a mother to tell their kid to eat grass as a punishment? If punishments ran into meal time, that would be a meal missed.”
She, like most of her siblings, was regularly beaten with a rubber spatula until she displayed welts.
Daily life under her mum was a “military-like” working day from 6.30am until 11pm. Sleep loss, malnourishment, fatigue and selfblaming was common among the children.
Once, she said, as punishment for a “crime”, her mother made derogatory remarks about her body while she was forced to expose herself in front of her siblings.
“It is the emotional scars that impact me the most,” she said.
After leaving her mum’s abusive grip, she learned her daily headaches were not normal for a healthy young person. A doctor felt it might be due to head trauma.
The children’s father, the woman’s husband, had split from her and was “genuinely sorry” about what had happened. He had tried to make amends to them, the court heard.
Crown prosecutor Jo Murdoch said the mother had claimed to a psychologist before sentencing that her actions were in line with a strict parenting approach.
She also claimed, Murdoch said, to have been made a “scapegoat” in a wider conspiracy.
But the woman’s lawyer, Phil Hamlin, said his client now accepted responsibility for her actions.
“Although she accepts she did wrong, she was trying to do right,” he said. “Her children were the sole focus of her life.”
The court received 36 letters of support for the mother. Judge Dawson, however, said she was cruel in a way “which simply cannot be justified”.
When the woman pleaded guilty mid-trial the evidence against her was “overwhelming”, he said.
“You went far beyond what could ever be imagined as necessary for good parenting.”