Couple Jailed For Forcing Armed Children to Fight on Tape
A U.K. couple, that forced two young children to have an armed fight against their will, have been jailed.
The pair was arrested when a third-party who taped the brutal child fight showed the video to one of the children’s relatives.
“The video footage is distressing, the children are crying,” Prosecutor Glenda Turnbull said in court.
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Ian Barclay, 20, and Gemma Mattinson, 26, forced a boy and girl to fight one another as they jeered and laughed on in encouragement. Both children, under the age of eight, cried out in terror and pain in a Gateshead, Tyne and Wear home.
The girl in the video was told to kick, punch and hit the boy with a large broom. The boy fearfully ran to hide behind a sofa but was dragged across the floor by Barclay, who slammed the boy into a radiator.
Prosecutor Turnbull explained the fight in gruesome details to the court:
“The defendants encouraged the children to fight each other. They were both instructing the girl how to attack the boy, telling her what to do, bringing the children together, providing her with plastic sticks and a broom to use against him,” Turnbull said.
The injuries the children suffered as a result of the fight are unclear, Turnbull said, according to the dailymailuk.
The couple pushed the children backed together and shouted “kick him, nut him” when the children attempted to separate, and pushed them back together.
The couple offered halfhearted defenses to the police.
It was a “joke that had gone too far,” Barclay said.
Mattinson told police she hadn’t realized the fight was “quite as bad” until she was shown the footage.
Barclay and Mattinson, who both have prior convictions for violence, have admitted to the charges of child cruelty.
Judge Roger Thorn sentenced Barclay and Mattinson to eight months in jail.
“Words would fail to describe it. The distress of both children was apparent from watching that DVD,” Judge Thorn said at the sentencing.
The father of one of the children spoke after the hearing, demanding the couple be registered offenders.
“The judge said he had to follow guidelines in relation to length of the sentences and I accept that but I think it's time these guidelines were reviewed,” the father said in a statement.
“To do what they did is just beyond belief. I couldn’t watch the video; I had to run out of court when it was played. There should be some sort of register they have to sign so everybody knows what they have done and they don’t get the chance to be near any children in future.”
According to the dailymailuk, Mattinson gave birth to a child on Saturday, which has been taken from her, and Barclay’s family has disowned him following the sentencing.
