CASE STUDY Christopher Spry, 29

I went to school for two weeks when I was five, but Eunice [Spry’s foster mother] removed me pretty much straight away. I think she was worried because I was going into school hungry and bruised that the teachers might start asking questions. For the first weeks after I left, she gave me the odd bit of school work to do, but after that, nothing. When I was older I did teach myself to read though.

One of my earliest memories is of being locked in a room. I was seven years old. We were in there about five days without any food or water. I remember licking the mould off the wall, desperate for something to eat. Eunice liked to punish us. As well as regular beatings she would make us complete tasks like running up and down the stairs for hours at a time. There were many times that she broke bones and didn’t take us [to hospital]. I still have severe problems with my legs and need operations.

I think an education officer came round once, but we were kept upstairs. [Eunice] did the work in the exercise books so it looked like something we did.

Later on, she bought some land in the countryside. There was a lot of building that needed doing, so we would work all day and then sleep in the caravan at night. We had mattresses on the floor and thin blankets, but no heating. It was better in the sense that we starved less. I learnt a bit of hunting, so we could live off the wildlife. When I was 16 and my sister was 19 she mentioned something in passing to one of the few friends she had and it was they who advised her to go to the police.