A married couple who subjected their six children to ongoing physical and emotional abuse were both jailed today when they appeared before Judge Sinéad McMullan at Castlebar Circuit Criminal Court.
The male accused was sentenced to six years and three months in prison with the final six months suspended for two years.
Along with his spouse, he admitted at a trial hearing earlier this year to multiple offences of child cruelty at a location in the west of Ireland between January 2018 and October 2021.
His wife was sentenced by Judge McMullan to three years and nine months in prison with the last nine months suspended.
The couple cannot be named publicly for legal reasons.
Their wrongdoing was exposed by two of their older children who secretly recorded the ongoing physical and emotional abuse before fleeing their home and walking into a Garda station where they handed over the incriminating audio evidence.
Afterwards the six siblings, who were aged between one and seventeen when the abuse was first reported, were taken into care.
In all, 188 phone recordings were made by the teenagers. At a previous hearing disturbing extracts from the phone recordings made by a daughter, who was then 15-years old, were replayed in court.
Judge McMullan said today that the children should have felt safe in their home with their parents as their protectors but there was no safe place for them and no safe parental figure to protect them.
The judge concluded by wishing all of the children the best in their future lives.
The prison sentence in respect of the male accused was backdated to August 27 last when he was taken into custody.