Women who forced children to fight escape jail
A grandmother and three of her daughters who encouraged a two-year-old boy and his three-year-old sister to fight, then filmed it, have been given suspended sentences.
Carole Oliver, 48, and Zara, 29, Serenza, 29, and Danielle, 19, all pleaded guilty to inciting the ill treatment of children.
One of the four can be heard on the tape calling the boy a “faggot” when he did not fight his sister.
The mother, Zara Care, pleaded guilty to causing or procuring the children to be ill treated in a manner likely to cause unnecessary suffering or injury.
All four were given 100 hours of unpaid work as additional punishment by the judge at Plymouth Crown Court.
Bullying campaigners said they horrified by the case.
“Calling your child a faggot because they don’t hit back is disgusting,” said Niall Cowley, Head of Communications at BeatBullying.
“How on earth can we as a society prevent bullying when role models behave like this? Evidence suggests that bullying is learned behaviour and this is a unique insight into that learning process.
“If these children were to grow up and become bullies themselves, would it be fair on them to be painted as the pariahs when this is all they know. We need to break this cycle.”
Part of the video of the incident which the women made was shown to the court.
A two-year-old boy in a nappy is punched in the face by his older sister and starts to cry.
One of the women then tells him to “not be a wimp or a faggot” and to retaliate.
The children are now being cared for by their father’s parents.
Detective Sargeant Barry Walters, who led the investigaion, told the BBC:
“Anyone watching this footage showing grown adults encouraging very young children committing unnatural acts would have been sickened and saddened.
“We have been in touch with child protection teams across the country and to my knowledge this is the first time that something like this has ever gone to court.”
