Victim’s voice Film tells story of abuse survivor’s ordeal
AVICTIM of Tewkesbury child abuser Eunice Spry is to tell his story on national TV. Cheltenham-born Christopher Spry is to appear in the Survivors series, presented by former Coronation Street actress Denise Welch, on the Crime + Investigation channel.
It explores what it means to live with the trauma of enduring and surviving horrific crimes and the incredible effort and courage required to rebuild a life in the aftermath.
Christopher’s story will be told in the last of the series’ six episodes, at 9pm on May 24.
He was taken away from his parents, who could not look after him at the age of three. He was placed in the care of Eunice Spry, a pillar of the Jehovah’s Witness community, at her Gloucestershire home.
Life was idyllic at first, with Spry playing the ‘strict but loving’ parent. But a few months later, the abuse began. For more than 13 years Spry systematically tortured Christopher and some of her other foster children.
She regularly battered and attacked them with hot pokers, machetes, and cricket bats, and held their heads underwater.
Christopher and his siblings were subjected to sickening physical and mental torture by Spry, who forced them to eat their excrement and vomit.
She rammed sticks down the children’s throats, rubbed their faces with sandpaper, and locked them naked in rooms for weeks at a time.
Christopher said: “So, the day to day abuse was happening all the time. You know we were beaten daily and she was always looking for new ways to try and shock us.
“She became obsessed with sticks down the throat. So, she’d be beating your feet and if you were screaming she’d shove something down your throat.”
The children were taken out of school and moved to a remote farmhouse near Tewkesbury, teaching themselves to read and write.
After Victoria, his foster sister, managed to escape the house in 2004, aged 19, she then reported her foster mother to the police.
Finally, when Christoper was 16, Spry was arrested.
She was convicted of 26 charges, including unlawful wounding, cruelty to a person under the age of 16 and assault occasioning actual bodily harm, and was sentenced to 14 years in prison in 2007.
Spry denied all charges, claiming that the only punishment she had ever administered was a smack to the bottom.
Her sentence was subsequently reduced to 12 years. She served half her sentence and then was released on parole in 2014, returning to live in the area where Christopher still resides.
He has since gone on to rebuild his life.
Other victims of Spry have spoken publicly about their troubled past. They include her foster son Caleb Gilbert and foster daughter Victoria Spry, who died last year.
» The Crime + Investigation channel is available on Sky 156, Virgin 275 and Talktalk 328.