Don’t let the adoptive mum who tortured me live nearby: Plea as woman who abused her for 20 years is due to be freed from prison A woman who was neglected and tortured for 20 years told of her fear last night that the foster mother who abused her may be allowed to live nearby when she is released from jail. Eunice Spry is due to be released by the end of the month after serving seven years for torturing, beating and starving children in her care, crimes that a judge said were the most horrific he had seen. Her adopted daughter Victoria, one of three children who suffered unimaginable cruelty at her hands, is now fighting to stop her settling within 150 miles of her home. Victoria, who does not want to give her surname or address, has started a petition to keep Spry, 70, away from her, and has so far amassed more than 11,000 signatures. She says police and prison officials will not tell her exactly when Spry will be released – having served just half of her 14-year sentence – or where she will live, although they say it will not be Gloucestershire, where Victoria has settled. But Victoria fears that Spry could return to Worcestershire, where she used to live, just 25 miles away. Last night, Victoria said: ‘Why do criminals have more rights than their victims? She has served her punishment but mine will never leave me. ‘I will fight with everything I have to stop this happening. When she was sent to prison I felt safe for the first time in my life. I was so happy that she couldn’t hurt me any more. ‘I never want to see her again and I do not want her living anywhere near me. I do not think I am asking for a lot.’ Spry, a twice-divorced Jehovah’s Witness, fostered children for Gloucestershire Social Services for more than 20 years. In 2007 she was found guilty of 26 charges of child abuse against three of them, including Victoria, whom she adopted as a baby. Victoria was left chained for days as a child and was beaten daily. She was kept out of school and never learned to read or write, having effectively been imprisoned at a decrepit farm in Eckington, Worcestershire. At the age of 14, Victoria’s misery plumbed new depths after she was seriously injured in a car crash that left her in a coma for six months and killed two of her sisters. After leaving hospital, Spry confined her to a wheelchair needlessly for four years to get benefits, which led to the wasting of her leg muscles. But at 19 she escaped after strangulation marks on her neck were spotted during a rare visit to a local church. Worshippers helped her and she went to police, who arrested Spry. Since then, she has flourished, teaching herself to read and write and becoming a talented animal photographer. But Victoria, who is engaged to her boyfriend of five years, said: ‘I am scared of her still and I am angry about many things. ‘I am angry about my lack of education, that I get laughed out of job interviews because I have no GSCEs. I am angry that as a 28-year-old woman, I have to wear false teeth because she knocked mine out. ‘I am angry that I have scars all over my body and that I have to fight every day from hearing her voice, telling me that I am worthless, that my biological parents didn’t want me, that no one wants me. ‘Sometimes you have to talk about the past to stop it becoming somebody else’s future. ‘As children we were shut off from the world. ‘We had no friends and were not allowed to go to school.’ She believes that Spry’s sadism stemmed from her twisted view of her devout faith as a Jehovah’s Witness, believing that some children were possessed and needed purifying. She remembers waking from her coma, having broken virtually every bone in her body, including her neck and hips, and having sustained serious injuries to her internal organs. Victoria, who now campaigns to get more support for the victims of child abuse, said: ‘She was there. ‘She told me that I was scum, that I should have died but the devil saves his own. ‘I remember lying in the hospital bed and feeling the tears fall silently down my face, wishing I had died.’
Posted on: Mon, 14 Jul 2014 08:04:34 +0000
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