Cruel foster parents jailed

A couple who made life for the children in their care a "living nightmare" have been jailed.Approved foster parents Elizabeth and Walter Roe, both 64, bullied and abused children in their care, Norwich Crown Court heard.Mrs Roe was sentenced to four years in prison after being found guilty of six counts of cruelty on six different girls under the age of 16 following a trial last month.Her husband was sentenced to three years in prison after he admitted four counts of indecent assault at an earlier hearing.During Mrs Roe's trial, the court heard that she cared for a number of vulnerable youngsters in the 1970s and '80s.Stephen Spence, prosecuting, said she portrayed herself as a "God-fearing, respectable figure".But, he said, behind closed doors she was "deliberately cruel" to the children, regularly beating them with anything that came to hand.The court heard that the alleged catalogue of abuse included Mrs Roe keeping the children short of food, making them "virtual slaves" by performing household chores and starving them of affection. She also verbally humiliated them.All the victims are now adults, and only recently came forward to make their complaints, Mr Spence said.During the trial, one woman described how she was hit with whatever Mrs Roe could lay her hands on.She told the jury that Mrs Roe, of Norwich, was lazy and made the children do the work around the house.The court also heard that Mrs Roe would wake the children in the early hours of the morning to do household tasks which she claimed had not been completed properly the first time.The woman also described how she suffered from incontinence as a child and was once made to sit in a bath of cold water as a form of punishment when she was about five or six years old.While sitting in the bath, she said, Mrs Roe stabbed her in the leg with a vegetable knife, which left a scar.She also remembered being made to stand out in the snow in her pyjamas with no shoes on as a punishment.She told the jury she did not say anything at the time because she did not know better. "I just thought this was normal," she said. "It made me angry once I realised what a proper childhood should be like."© Independent Television News Limited 2007. All rights reserved.

ITN | February 6, 2007

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