April 2017 Cruel mother jailed for subjecting her young son to decade of abuse A cruel mother has been jailed for subjecting her young son to a decade of hunger, beatings and humiliations. Christine Copley picked on her third son Andrew as he was growing up in the 1980s and early 1990s and imposed a regime of painful and needless punishments. She succeeded in hiding what she was doing from teachers and social workers by moving Andrew from her home in Exeter to her parents in Chagford if he had visible bruises. Copley gave Andrew so little food he was sometimes forced to eat dog biscuits or hamster food to survive. The family home was filthy with uncleared dog mess on the floors and Andrew was bullied at school because he smelled. Neighbours saw bruising on his body and one described Andrew as ‘the saddest little boy I ever saw’. He is still suffering the emotional effects of his nightmare childhood. The social services were supposed to be monitoring his welfare but she conned social workers and hid what she was doing from them. An inquiry launched after the family doctor complained concluded that the previous investigations ‘had only scratched the surface’ of her abuse. Copley, aged 66, now of Laburnum Road, Exeter, was found guilty of six counts of cruelty by a jury at Exeter Crown Court earlier this year. She was cleared of one charge which alleged she had beaten Andrew with a belt on an almost daily basis for much of the ten years from 1983 to 1993, when he was aged five to 15. She was jailed for three years by Judge Erik Salomonsen, who told her:”You subjected Andrew to ill treatment for ten years. On many occasions you caused bruising which was seen by neighbours. “You would keep him away from school so the authorities could not see what had occurred. Despite your neighbours’ concern the ill treatment continued. You appear to have targeted one child in the family. “He was made to stand outside the house naked and you made him go without food to the extent that he ate hamster food and dog biscuits. You put him in a cupboard under the stairs where you had previously kept dogs. “I have no doubt you were short of money but presents which he received at Christmas were quickly taken away and sold at car boot sales. “Your GP described you as having a powerful and controlling personality and it was many years before Andrew felt strong enough to go to the police.” In a victim impact statement read to the court Andrew said he has been diagnosed with PTSD because of his childhood. He said:”Christine Copley beat me, tortured me, with her verbal and emotional abuse and the terrible way I had to live. I still re-live my childhood on a daily basis. “I wished for death when I was a child and I wish for death still today as I struggle to get over what she did. The authorities did not help, even when I begged them. “I hope the Social Services will hear a child’s plea so maybe another child will have the chance that I never did.” During the trial the jury heard that Copley’s assaults did not always take the form of conventional beatings, although she did whip him with a dog lead and hit him with implements including shoes. She also twisted Andrew’s fingers or arms, held her hand over his mouth and nose, squeezed his genitals, or hit him in parts of the body where the marks could not be seen. She sometimes put him in a cold bath after a beating to try to reduce the visible bruising. Andrew and his younger brother were often locked into a dark, dirty under stairs cupboard as punishments and he was sometimes stripped naked and made to stand outside the house. Copley also employed emotional blackmail, threatening to abandon Andrew’s Jack Russell on a country road unless he sobbed for mercy and told her he loved her. On one occasion she stopped while driving back from Chagford and threw Andrew out of the car. She pretended to drive off and was laughing when she came back to pick him up. The daily attacks started when he was about five or six and carried on until he ran away from home at the age of 14 after a his mother had attacked him with a bottle. The beatings started when the family lived at Hurst Avenue, Exeter and carried on when they moved to homes in Farm Hill, Exwick, and Burnthouse Lane. March 2017 Cruel and abusive mother starved and beat her son for ten years A cruel mother has been found guilty of subjecting her young son to a decade of daily beatings and humiliations. Christine Copley picked on her third son Andrew as he was growing up in the 1980s and early 1990s and imposed a regime of painful and needless punishments. She succeeded in hiding what she was doing from teachers and social workers by moving Andrew from her home in Exeter to her parents in Chagford if he had visible bruises. Copley gave Andrew so little food he was sometimes forced to eat dog biscuits or hamster food to survive. The family home was filthy with uncleared dog mess on the floors and Andrew was bullied at school because he smelled. Her assaults did not always take the form of conventional beatings, although she did whip him with a dog lead and hit him with implements including shoes. Copley also twisted Andrew’s fingers or arms, held her hand over his mouth and nose, squeezed his genitals, or hit him in parts of the body where the marks could not be seen. She sometimes put him in a cold bath after a beating to try to reduce the visible bruising. Andrew and his younger brother were often locked into a dark, dirty under-stairs cupboard as punishments and he was sometimes stripped naked and made to stand outside the house. Copley also employed emotional blackmail, threatening to abandon Andrew’s Jack Russell on a country road unless he sobbed for mercy and told his mother he loved her. On one occasion she stopped while driving back from Chagford and threw Andrew out of the car. She pretended to drive off and was laughing when she came back to pick him up. The daily attacks started when he was about five or six and carried on until he ran away from home at the age of 14 after his mother had attacked him with a bottle. The beatings started when the family lived at Hurst Avenue, Exeter and carried on when they moved to homes in Farm Hill, Exwick, and Burnthouse Lane. Copley told a jury at Exeter Crown Court she had only hit the boy once and that his account of a nightmare childhood was untrue. She was found guilty of six counts of child cruelty after the jury heard not only from Andrew and his brother but also from former neighbours and friends who witnessed her behaviour. One of the neighbours said Andrew was ’the saddest little boy I ever saw’. Copley, aged 65, now of Laburnum Road, Exeter, denied seven counts of cruelty but was convicted of all but one charge. Judge Erik Salomonsen adjourned sentence and ordered a probation report. He told Copley: ’You made your son’s life a misery. I am making no promises about your sentence.’ He released Copley on bail and will sentence her on April 28. During a week-long case Andrew Copley told the jury he had endured a nightmare childhood in a filthy and squalid house with little or nothing to eat. He said his mother resented him because she wanted a girl instead of a boy the abuse made him want to die. He did not tell social workers about his treatment because he feared receiving even more serious beatings at the hands of his mother. He said: ’She was violent every day. After a while I stopped crying when she beat me. She wanted me to cry and it was my way of getting back.’