Posted on 05/03/2007 10:48:30 AM PDT by Gamecock
A pair of Mormon churchgoers who force fed six young children tablespoons of hot chilli powder were found guilty of child cruelty offences today.
Maria Keable and Deirdre Carrington punished the four girls and two boys, all aged under 16, by making them eat tablespoons of chilli powder or raw chillies, raw eggs, and stinging them with nettles.
The children were also routinely hit with wooden rolling pins and lined up in a row and punched and kicked. One boy was also gagged, tied to a bed and covered with a sheet.
He was also forced to administer the stinging nettle treatment to the other children for fear of being hit.
The best friends' reign of physical and emotional cruelty over the children in Ramsgate, Kent, lasted for nine years.
The jury of nine men and three women at Canterbury Crown Court took five hours to convict them both of six child cruelty offences and one assault charge.
Keable, a 60-year-old Macedonian, regarded her actions as Christian and believed in "love with boundaries".
One boy, now aged 12, told the jury during the two-and-a-half week trial that Keable would substitute chilli powder with raw, chopped chillies if she ever ran out. He said: "We sometimes cried because it was really hot and all she'd do was just whack us and give us some more."
On another occasion he was set upon by both women, who pushed him back and forth between them "like a football".
Carrington also carried out the chilli pepper punishment, the boy said.
Carrington told police she was having "emotional problems" when she made one girl eat chilli powder.
The chilli-powder punishment was also given to a two-year-girl.
Keable told police that "in her country, the use of chilli was normal" and that she believed "her motives were Christian".
She admitted to police she hit the children for not eating raw eggs and honey because it was a "healthy part of their diet".
Carrington, 41, of Chiswick, west London, and Keable, of Ramsgate, both denied six counts of child cruelty and one assault charge between January 1997 and January last year.
They met at a Mormon temple in London 10 years ago. They also attended Mormon churches in Deal and Canterbury in Kent.
Prosecutor Robin Johnson told the jury: "This was a case of two women who were completely out of control and were acting in a disgraceful way to these children."
Judge Timothy Nash remanded the pair in custody and indicated that he may sentence later on today.
Judge Nash, referring to the assault charge, told the two women: "This isn't excessive chastisement in the court's view. It may have started off like that but there came a time towards the later years where it had an element of sadism, I think, about it."
The children were punished by the pair for not completing their chores satisfactorily. The judge said: "I'm quite satisfied that where nettles were concerned it was no botany lesson."
Addressing the pair he said: "Deidre wouldn't say boo to a goose. The strength lay with Maria. This matrimonial figure, initially perhaps with the best intentions, took complete control and lost it."
He warned them that they both faced a custodial sentence and adjourned the case for pre-sentence reports. The next court hearing will be at the same court on June 4. The women were remanded in custody.
And all of what you have posted has to do with what horrific deeds these women did to those poor children? Child abuse is not tolerated nor permitted in the Church of Jesus CHrist of Latter-Day Saints. If a member is convicted of child abuse, they are excommunicated. Even if they fully repent and come back into full fellowship, they can never have anything to do with children in the LDS church.
Definitely not church doctrine. Really out there in la la land somewhere.
You are absolutely correct in your statement. Thanks.
hot chili powder is anything but hot - for heavens sake - there more spices in doritoes -
besides...anything is better than having to snort wasabi like my dad made us (/sarcasm).....except alum on your canker sores
The worst though was a bar of dial soap jammed in our mouth and scraped across your teeth....and the welts on our legs..
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