Children who were forced to eat spoonfuls of paprika and were beaten for hours by their parents have been taken into long-term foster care with Wokingham Borough Council.

The parents were found to use various abusive punishments on the boy and girl, including forcing them to hang upside down from a shelf until they cried from pain.

The pair were also threatened with a knife as well as pepper ‘to their eyes, mouth and ears’, Judge Richard Case told a family court hearing in Slough in November 2023.

Wokingham Borough Council, who brought the legal case against the parents, alleged the children had suffered 16 instances or categories of events, but 11 of these dating back to 2018 were proved on the balance of probability.

The boy had made an audio recording of his mother beating him on the feet for more than an hour, despite the boy ‘weeping, crying and screaming and pleas for her to stop’, Judge Case said.

Both children have since been taken into care with Wokingham Borough Council, who brought the legal case against the parents.

The mother has been jailed for 27 months, with no further police action taken against the father, Judge Case said.

At a hearing on October 7, Judge Case said that the children have sometimes expressed a wish to live with their father.

The father sought to become the sole carer for the children and both said they 'think' they would like to return home, but this was denied.

The judge said that the girl had been ‘unwell, upset and distressed’ in foster care, with concerns raised by an interim foster carer about her mental health – including a possible suicide attempt.

On October 7 Judge Case granted a care order, placing the two children in the care of Wokingham Borough Council.

Judge Case said: “There is, desperately sadly, no good outcome. In so far as it is possible, I feel the pain the parents feel about their children, especially [the girl] being so unwell, upset and distressed in foster care.

“I have no doubt they love them dearly and genuinely want the best for them and genuinely feel that can be provided in the father’s care.”

The judge continued: “I cannot and do not lose sign of the fact that the origin of this pain is in their actions and the consequences of that[…] is an inability to safely care for the children.”

The parents may be deported, according to the judge, and Wokingham Borough Council has applied for visas for the children.