Abused foster son publishes book
from: news.bbc.co.uk
A Gloucestershire teenager who suffered years of mental and physical torture at the hands of his foster mother has published an account of his experience.
Eunice Spry was jailed for 14 years in March 2007, after being convicted of 26 charges including cruelty and wounding.
Her foster son, Christopher, 19, and his two sisters told the court how she rammed sticks down their throats.
Mr Spry said he wrote the book, Child C - Surviving a Foster Mother's Reign of Terror, to put the horror behind him.
"There were beatings all over the body with gazebo poles, bamboo poles," he told the BBC.
"She mainly targeted the feet which don't scar as much as other parts of the body.
"There were torture positions, there were sticks being shoved down our throats to keep us quiet while we were being beaten."
The offences took place in two of Spry's homes in Tewkesbury between 1986 and 2005.
Nightmares
Mr Spry said the cruelty was not just physical.
"We were locked in a room for more than a month with little food, little water," he said.
"We weren't let out to have washes, or go to the toilet.
"When my nan came over, they all had a roast dinner downstairs and she brought the roast dinner upstairs and left it in the room with us and told us not to eat it.
"We were just sat there, looking at this beautiful roast dinner after being starved for nearly a month and it was torture."
A year after his foster mother's conviction, Mr Spry said he was still suffering nightmares.
"Of course, there were medical injuries, I can live with that, but the nightmares...
"I don't get much sleep and you see it all playing back in your head. You just see her face and it's really hard to sleep. That's the worst thing."
Lessons learned
During the case, the foster children were referred to only as Victims A, B and C.
Mr Spry admitted he would like to make some money from the book but said that breaking his anonymity and writing it had been therapeutic.
"You hear a lot in the newspapers, in the press of what it was like, but to actually read from a first person's view is different.
"I wanted people to know what really happened and to put it behind me, to get it in the past and move on."
During the trial, the court heard that the abuse was not spotted by health professionals over a period of 20 years.
Spry portrayed herself as a loving, caring mother and denied all the charges.
She had told the court: "I sweated blood for these children. I've worked non-stop. I love them. I still love them."
After the trial, the chairman of the Gloucestershire Safeguarding Children Board, Jo Grills, said lessons would be learned from the case.