"Climate of fear": Parents repeatedly shot children with BB gun for not doing chores

A mother and father who shot their children with a BB gun as a punishment for not doing their chores, among other things, pleaded guilty to charges of child cruelty.

The couple, from Blackpool, England, used the BB gun on their five children throughout the span of four months whenever they believed the kids misbehaved, according to BBC.

The father, who originally bought the BB gun last February to shoot birds and his kids, kept the gun down the side of a sofa. When he was gone, he would give the gun to his wife to shoot at the children, according to BBC.

The children were shot for multiple reasons. One was shot in the leg for refusing to change their sibling’s diaper; another was shot because he failed to wash the dishes properly; and a 13-year-old was shot for having a boyfriend because her father viewed her as too young to have one, according to The Guardian.

One of the children, who hid their bruises under their school uniform, told a teacher at their school about the cruel punishment — and said they did not feel safe at home, according to The Guardian.

The children, aged between 7 and 15, were removed from the home and interviewed by social services, according to BBC.

One child said they were shot for dropping things, adding, “I drop stuff nearly every day.”

Another said they would be pelted with BB gun pellets for not doing chores.

“If I didn’t do the chores in the house, Dad or my mum would either threaten me with the BB gun or shoot me with it,” one child said. “They’d shoot me on the legs, arms, stomach and back.”

At first, the parents denied the allegations of abuse; the father claimed he only used a Nerf gun, and that one of his children must have caused the BB gun injuries, according to The Guardian.

Judge Robert Altham described the cruelty as “a regime of punishment.”

“This was not the behavior of immature parents,” he said. “This was the behaviour of people who had developed a system, a regime of discipline, that involved this form of violence. Of course I have no doubt that running a house with [many] children in it can be and will necessarily be sometimes stressful.

“This does not appear to be the sort of offense that is the result of parents being at the end of their tether. It was conduct that was repeated and became a regime of punishment.”

The parents both eventually pleaded guilty to five counts of child cruelty. The father, 50, received two years in jail, while the mother, 33, was given a suspended sentence and 200 hours of unpaid work, according to BBC.

This story was originally published September 5, 2017 at 1:26 PM with the headline ""Climate of fear": Parents repeatedly shot children with BB gun for not doing chores."