Daily Mirror (Northern Ireland)
SADIST’S WATERBOARD TORTURE OF GIRL AGE 6
A SADIST who waterboarded a girl of six has been jailed for 12 years.
Garth Gatland, 39, used terrifying violence on the girl in a prison torture house that was “like Fort Knox”, a judge said.
He also used extreme violence on a 15-year-old boy, once slamming him into a chair so hard that it broke, said Judge Stuart Bridge.
He called it “as serious a case that one is likely to encounter”.
The judge said Gatland, who admitted child cruelty, presented a serious risk of harm and must spend five years after his sentence on licence.
He said he made the girl run on a treadmill, force-fed her and beat her feet with a wooden spoon.
He told him: “You waterboarded her on at least one occasion, putting a water-soaked rag over her head and running water over her head so she choked.”
The girl had bruises all over her body and his Cambridgeshire home was a “prison which you governed with terrifyingly violent sanctions”. He added it was “as clear a case can be of sadistic systematic abuse”.
Cambridge crown court was told by the girl’s foster mother she showed extreme anxiety of water and would need “extensive psychiatric” help for years.
The carer added: “She feels safe if Gatland is in prison and says she never wants to see him again.”
The boy said: “Being in that house was hell. I felt I was stuck there for ever. I have to live with a terrible sense of guilt, it makes me sad.” Neither child can be named.