Son, 8, given freezing water punishment

Police officers found the boy standing in the garden of the family home soaking wet, shivering and with blue lips in September last year. He told them he was not allowed to move.

His ordeal lasted for more than two hours as his father, who cannot be named for legal reasons, banished him outside for urinating and defecating inside the house near Canterbury, Kent.

A woman visiting a friend raised the alarm after hearing the child screaming loudly and wailing so much that she at first thought it was an animal.

Margate Magistrates' Court heard that she saw a man in a dressing gown shouting and the boy "rigid, with his shoulders hunched and an expression of being petrified".

Prosecutor Ruth Dalziell she heard the man shout at the child: "You won't p*** in my house."

The 30-year-old father also told the terrified boy "You aren't coming back in" and "You're staying there all day". The woman also saw the father hit the boy on his head and shoulders, Ms Dalziell said.

She told the court: "The male had a hosepipe and was chasing the boy around the garden spraying him with water. A couple of times he hit the child on the back of the head and the male continued to shout aggressively."

In a police interview, the father denied hitting the boy and claimed the incident lasted no more than 20 minutes, but admitted hosing him with water.

At a hearing last month the father pleaded guilty to cruelty to the child, who is now in foster care. Magistrates handed him a 150-day prison sentence, suspended for two years.

He also received a 24-month supervision order to include attending a victim awareness course and was ordered to pay costs of 600.