Horror video shows children forced to fight
A UK couple who forced two children under eight to fight while they laughed have been jailed.
The couple, Ian Barclay, 20, and Gemma Mattinson, 26, forced the boy and girl to fight, and could be heard laughing and cheering in the background of the videotaped incident.
The children were heard sobbing as the girl was ordered to punch, kick and hit the boy with a broom, the Daily Mail reported.
The video, taken on a mobile phone by another person, shows Barclay dragging the boy across the floor and banging him into a radiator after he tried to hide from the attacks behind a sofa.
The three-minute video left a number of people distressed after it was played in the Newcastle Crown Court.
Prosecutor Glenda Turnbull told the court: "The defendants encouraged the children to fight each other.
"They were both instructing the girl how to attack the boy, telling her what to do, bringing the children together, providing her with plastic sticks and a broom to use against him.
"The video footage is distressing, the children are crying."
The children were seen being pushed back together and urged to continue fighting despite trying to separate from each other.
Barclay and Mattinson were arrested by police after the person who filmed the incident showed it to a relative of one of the children.
Barclay admitted it was "a joke that had gone too far".
Both Barclay and Mattinson admitted to child cruelty charges, and were both jailed for eight months.
"You put them up to fight each other as though they were toys in some Roman Amphitheatre for the sport of those watching," judge Roger Thorn said.
"What happens beggars belief. There would be public outrage if this was not met with an immediate custodial sentence."
The father of one of the children said after sentencing: "The judge said he had to follow guidelines in relation to length of the sentences and I accept that but i think its time these guidelines were reviewed.
"To do what they did is just beyond belief. I couldn’t watch the video, I had to run out of court when it was played.
"My child went through all this and those two seemed to think it was funny.
"There should be some sort of register they have to sign so everybody knows what they have done and they don't get the chance to be near any children in future."
