Mother shows no emotion over being jailed for child cruelty

Linda Clappison, 46, of Keyingham Grange Cottages, Keyingham Marsh, East Yorkshire, had been found guilty of two counts of child cruelty at a trial at Hull Crown Court last month.

Sentencing Clappison, Judge Michael Mettyear, the Recorder of Hull, yesterday described the case as “tragic” and praised the “super” children, who gave evidence against their mother during the hearing.

Judge Mettyear said that Clappison had “blighted” the lives of her “measured, sensible and pleasant” children.

The trial heard that the mother-of-four forced her two youngest children to work for gypsies as slaves after falling under the spell of a fortune teller.

Within weeks of the meeting, Clappison started locking her son and daughter, then aged 10 and six, in their rooms and assaulting them.

The court heard how the only sustenance they were given was sandwiches.

Eventually Clappison took the lightbulbs, toys and all mattresses and bedding from their rooms.

The conditions the children were subjected to were so severe that they were left needing hospital treatment for frostbite.

After her daughter, now aged 13, told the court that her mother had shaved her hair at least five times as punishment, Clappison said the girl wanted to look like Britney Spears.

Her son, Andrew Clappison, now 18, told the trial: “We were treated like dogs.”

During sentencing yesterday, Judge Mettyear told her: “This is, in many ways, a tragic case for all those concerned.”

He said: “Nobody sitting through the trial, as I did, could fail to be moved and impressed by your four children.

“They were the sort of children that any parent thinking clearly and sensibly would admire.

“They were measured, sensible and pleasant.

“That is a credit to them, rather than to you, that they have somehow survived what you have put them through and turned out well.”

Judge Mettyear said the progress made by Clappison’s daughter since the events was “remarkable”.

He continued: “The ways in which they’ve suffered and battled through it make this a bad case.”

However the judge also said he could not help but have sympathy for Clappison because he believed something had happened in her life to make her think in a “strange and illogical way”.

He said he had no way of knowing if the change in Clappison was due to the meeting with the fortune teller but added: “I am satisfied that something changed and changed with disastrous consequences.”

He said: “The children, with great fairness, said that there was a long period when you were a perfectly good mother, caring and, if anything, over-protective.

“And that then something went very, very badly wrong in your life and your mind, caused you to change and treat them in the way that you did.”

The court heard that despite the testimony from her children and the evidence against her, Clappison had still not admitted the offences.

Instead she has maintained her insistence that her children are “liars” and that she will never consider a reconciliation.

The judge said: “In my view, that is your loss, not theirs, because they are super children.

He added: “It is sad that seeing your children in court giving evidence did not in any way melt your heart.”

Jailing Clappison with concurrent sentences of 18 months for each of the two charges, Judge Mettyear told the court: “You blighted the lives of those children and only custody can be justified.”

Clappison, wearing a cream sweater with a grey and pink diamond pattern and a blue necklace, stood with her hands behind her back throughout her court appearance for sentencing.

She showed no emotion as she was jailed.