Foster care couple jailed for child cruelty

Two foster care parents, who looked after hundreds of children over a 20-year period have been jailed for child cruelty.

Elizabeth Roe - known as Betty - 64, from Norwich, was jailed for three years for child cruelty, while her husband Walter, also 64, was jailed for four years, after pleading guilty to four counts of indecent assault. He was also put on the sex offenders' register.

Norwich Crown Court heard how the girls in the couple's care were beaten, starved and using them as virtual slaves to do the housework for them.

Stephen Spence, prosecuting, said that Mrs Roe had portrayed herself as God-fearing and respectable, but said that she was deliberately cruel to the children behind closed doors, regularly beating them with anything that came to hand.

Mrs Roe had denied the charges against her. Mr Roe admitted indecently assaulting two girls aged between 12 and 14.

Mr and Mrs Roe were featured in a newspaper article in 1989 in which they were dubbed model foster parents.

Speaking at sentencing, Judge Paul Downes said: "Foster parents are the unsung heroes of the system and normally take on difficult children from deprived and difficult backgrounds and in many cases work absolute wonders. No-one wants to take away from those achievements. What you have done is besmirch the reputation of those people."

Mr and Mrs Roe first became foster carers in 197, when they already had three children of their own.

Lisa Christensen, director of children's services at Norfolk County Council said that the couple had been subjected to appropriate checks required at that time, but stressed that potential foster carers today are subject to much more stringent checks.

Norfolk County Council welcomed the sentences handed to the couple, saying that they were guilty of a serious abuse of trust.

(KMcA)