A father who forced his children to eat their own pet rabbit has been jailed.
The 77-year-old, of Market Drayton, Shropshire, put his children through 15 years of horrific abuse during the 1970s and 80s.
The man, who cannot be named to protect the identity of his victims, made his children choose between two family dogs, before dumping the other in the countryside and driving off while the children watched it chase the family car.
He has since been jailed for three-and-a-half years after appearing at Shrewsbury Crown Court for sentencing.
The man appeared at Shrewsbury Crown Court (file pic)
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The court heard how the man killed the family’s pet rabbit and forced the children to eat it for their dinner. The children were also “lined up” and beaten with “sticks and weapons” for minor misdemeanours, including wetting themselves, MailOnline has reported.
One child, who suffered from arachnophobia, was forced to lie in the cellar, while a spider was placed on her face.
Prosecutor Anthony Longworth told the court that all three children had suffered psychologically throughout their lives.
He added that the children had become dependent on alcohol, with one attempting suicide and a third having left the country as soon as they were able to leave home.
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The court heard how the man forced the children to eat the family rabbit (file pic)
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The prosecutor told the court: “They were forced to eat the family pet. He ruined them all.”
He also said that the father had also strangled a family dog in front of the children. The man, who had denied child cruelty, had told a jury trial he was “just a disciplinarian”.
However, he was convicted of three counts of child cruelty and one count of actual bodily harm for kicking and punching his daughter, leaving her scarred, after she came home with a love bite.
Recorder Julian Taylor told the defendant, he was a “bully and a sadist”.
Taylor told the court: “This went far beyond discipline or reasonable chastisement. It was cruelty and physical abuse occurring regularly…You put a spider on the face of one child, along with the cruelty to the family pets, which was also cruelty to the children.
“One episode that I can’t forget, no matter how much I may want to, is that you asked them to make a choice between their two dogs and then you drive out to the countryside with the three children in the car, entice the dog out of the car and you shut the door and drive off and the children had to watch it running after the car.
“Their pet rabbit you killed and offered up for supper – whether the children started to eat the rabbit is unclear. Fact is it was killed and you said they must eat their pet rabbit.’
However, in passing sentence the judge said he was “bound” by the sentencing guidelines of 40 years ago, adding: “Times have changed. When these offences took place there was a maximum sentence of two years and I am bound to that. The maximum now is 14 years.
“But I am not constrained by the case of actual bodily harm when your child came back with a love bite, not uncommon with teenagers, and you went absolutely ballistic, lost all sense of control.”