Eunice Spry appeals against cruelty sentence
08:00 - 22-July-2008
EVIL foster mother Eunice Spry is trying to get her 14-year jail sentence cut.
Cruel Spry was jailed in April last year in one of the worst cases of child abuse ever seen in the UK.
The 63-year-old tortured and beat her three foster children as part of a shocking catalogue of abuse over 20 years.
She was convicted on 24 counts of what a judge called “sadistic torture”.
The devout Jehovah's Witness forced sticks down her children's throats, made them swallow bleach and washing up liquid and told them to eat their vomit and rat droppings.
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She deprived them of sleep and kept one of her children in a wheelchair for years, even though she could walk.
Now the Court of Appeal in London has received an appeal from the twice-divorced pensioner against the length of her sentence.
Yesterday, her victims spoke of their anger at the appeal.
Christopher Spry said: “Right now, I'm very hurt. She has never apologised or opened up about doing any of this and that's the most hurtful thing.
“And now she's trying to get time off her sentence and that's very upsetting.
“I was talking to one of the other victims and she was angry that she should be allowed to appeal at all.”
Christopher, 19, said she had never shown any remorse for her actions.
He said: “The last time I saw her was when she was in court.
“I caught her eye for the last 10 seconds before she was taken down and she was just smirking. This feels like she's just smirking in our faces again.
“It's a massive kick in the teeth – we want the chance now to try and get on with our lives.”
As Spry is appealing against her sentence, and not her conviction, the evidence given at her trial doesn't need to be re-examined and Christopher and other witnesses are not expected to have to appear in court.
Christopher's parents Paul, 47 and Carmel, 42, said the appeal is outrageous.
Carmel said: “She can't argue against the evidence, so I think the only thing she can be appealing on is her age.
“It's terrible that she should even be trying this appeal, she's damaged the lives of three children.”
Paul said: “This will bring it all back up for everyone all over again. Although the children are okay now, they'll never get that time back. She wasn't given a long enough sentence.”
At her trial for cruelty in March 2007, Spry was found guilty on 24 charges, including child cruelty, assault, wounding an witness intimidation, which she continued to deny throughout the trial.
Spry, who lived at George Dowty Drive, Northway, Tewkesbury, cut one child's hand open with a jagged tin lid and beat the others, stepping on their throats if they cried out.
The children were also beaten on the soles of their feet, had sandpaper rubbed in their faces and Christopher had his hand put in the flame of a gas cooker as a punishment.
The years of abuse came to light when one of the three foster children, known as Child A in the trial, spoke to members of the Jehovah's Witnesses in Tewkesbury about her bruises and reported her foster mother to the police.
Social Services were criticised for missing the abuse, even though they visited her house.
Gloucestershire County Council apologised to the children for the shortcomings which allowed Spry to get away with years of abuse.
Spry is represented by David Campbell of Sansbury Campbell solicitors in Bristol.
He said: “I can't tell you the grounds for the appeal. I have no instructions to give you that information.”
The appeal will be heard at the Royal Courts of Justice, in London. No date has been set.
In any appeal against a sentence it is possible for the new sentence to be increased as well as reduced.
Antonie Dixon's sister gives evidence in court
When Antonie Dixon told the jury an astonishing tale of sexual abuse by his mother and beatings at the hands of Jehovah's Witnesses, they must have wondered whether any of it was believable.
Today they heard from someone else who was there at the time and she confirmed much of what he said.
According to Dixon's sister Carla, he was dubbed "devil spawn" by their mother.
Carla Dixon-Foxley says she was his closest friend and ally, but from a young age she knew something was not quite right with her baby brother.
"He used to bash his head on the couch and he used to just sit there and like that, bashing, bashing, bashing," Ms Dixon-Foxley says.
Ms Dixon-Foxley says Dixon was abused by their mother, who would tie him to a clothesline outside their Grey Lynn house and invite fellow members of the Jehovah's Witness church to beat him.
"It was like living in a madhouse," Ms Dixon-Foxley says.
She told the jury that Dixon was also sexually abused by members of the church. Among his abusers was one man who always carried a camera.
"Of course we know why he had the camera now," Ms Dixon-Foxley says. "He was taking pornographic pictures of my brother and his friends."
In cross examination, the Crown questioned Antonie Dixon's sister on whether she had ever seen him violent - especially violent towards his mother. She replied that as far as she was concerned, any violence towards their mother was justified.
"When you get backed into a corner for long enough and you get hurt for a long, long time, you have to jump back," Ms Dixon-Foxley says. "You have to defend yourself and that's what I believed it was. It was self-defence."
Ms Dixon-Foxley, who has a successful career as a nutritionist in London recalled a family conference where a psychiatrist asked her how she had managed to stay sane in the Dixon family home. She says she had no answer.
At the end of her evidence, Ms Dixon-Foxley blew her brother a kiss before walking over to hug him.
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