A mother who sexually
abused her own young daughter, burning her with a lightbulb, forcing her
to drink salt water and hitting her fingers with a hammer was jailed
today.
The girl was just
five-years-old when her mother's campaign of abuse started, and was only
able to escape the torment when she ran away from home at 12.
She broke down in tears at Liverpool Crown Court today, sobbing uncontrollably as a judge told her mother that she 'robbed her of her childhood' by her persistent abuse, and sentenced the older woman to six years and eight months in prison.
Her 60-year-old mother, who lives in
North Merseyside, had pleaded guilty to three specimen sexual assault
offences and 12 offences of child cruelty between May 1978 and May 1985.The
court had earlier been told that the victim, who is now 40 and like her
mother can not be named for legal reasons, had been subjected to
cruelty between the ages of five to 12, including being burnt by a hot light bulb.
She was forced to drink salt water as a form of
chastisement and for her mum’s enjoyment, had a bar of soap forced in
her mouth and was beaten with a bath brush in the early hours of the
morning to enforce cleaning of the house.
Peter Hussey, prosecuting, also told
how the woman banged her daughter’s head so hard on the wall she vomited
and she also struck her with a cast iron frying pan.
The mother used a hammer on her daughter's fingers, held her head under bathwater so she
feared drowning, smothered her with a pillow, bent her
legs beneath her in a contorted position and then sat on them and struck
her with a shoe.
The sexual abuse included her mother using tweezers to pluck out public hairs and making her suck her breasts.
In a personal statement the victim revealed contemporaneous notes she made of her suffering at the hands of her mother.
She finally left the home she shared in Everton with her single mother when she was 12 after she again had her head banged against a wall and was punched.
Although she told the police. and her
mother independently confided in her GP about her behaviour there was no
formal follow up and it was not until last year that the victim told
the police, having obtained her medical and social services records.
Paul Lewis, mitigating, said that the
defendant, who has no previous convictions, had psychological and
psychiatric difficulties at the time and was a single and isolated
parent.
After having her daughter she made a decision not to have any more children because of her problems.
Although
the girl ran away when she was 12 the pair resumed a relationship when
she later got pregnant and had continued to have contact over the years.
She had gone to her GP in the 1980s in a cry for help, he added.
Sentencing
the mother, Judge Robert Warnock told her that reports presented to the
court might partly 'explain your despicable conduct towards your own
daughter. It certainly does not excuse it.'
He added: 'She clearly felt worthless, unwanted and not believed. If it is any comfort she is believed now.'
