A little girl has been subjected to brutal torture by her mother and step-mom after they found out she was stealing food.
Deborah Harrison and Jennifer Harrison arrive court
A teenage girl was starved by her parents and hit with a hammer every time she stole food, a court heard.
According to Metro UK, Deborah Harrison, 37, and her step-mother, Jennifer Harrison, 40, allegedly attacked the young woman, who was 16 at the time, after she began to hide small amounts of food in the house in Bempton.
Now 20, the victim gave evidence from behind a screen in Hull Crown Court. She claimed items of food, such as bread and potatoes, were gradually withdrawn until there was nothing she was allowed to eat.
She told the jury: ‘Because of that I started to starve. All of a sudden you realise there’s a whole kitchen full of food and you can’t eat it.’
She told the court she resorted to eating small amounts of food that was ‘plentiful’ in the house, including fruit, bread and sweets kept in a cupboard.
To hide the evidence, she put the wrappers in a box hidden on top of a wardrobe, where she also placed a hammer she found because the women were ‘opportunistic’ about which items they hit her with, the court heard.
She claims on the day of the alleged hammer attack, on July 10, 2013, she noticed the box and hammer were in their bedroom.
She told the jury: ‘She [Jennifer] said ‘Let’s count how many wrappers there are’, and she counted them out one by one, and there was 34.’
Jennifer Harrison had the hammer in her hand and ‘was repeating herself about how disgusting I am, and as she was talking she was prodding me to prove a point’, the court heard.
‘She began to hit me as she was getting more and more angry.’
Asked by David Gordon, prosecuting, if her mum did anything to prevent the assault, she said: ‘Occasionally she would say things to back it up, like “disgusting”.’
The alleged victim told the court that Jennifer said: ‘”Right, 34 wrappers, 34 hits”, and she proceeded to hit me 34 times, counting each one.’
She said her mother also hit her with the hammer.
The woman also alleged that before being deprived of food, Jennifer Harrison forced her to gorge on seven bowls of porridge after asking for more sandwiches in her school pack-up when she was 14.
The victim told the court: ‘She [Jennifer Harrison] said, “I don’t know, let’s see how much you can eat”.
‘She made some porridge and I had like seven bowls of porridge. This continued on other days and it got concerning.
‘I couldn’t keep it up but they wouldn’t let me stop eating.’
The victim told a jury she was so badly abused by her mum and step-mum she tried to commit suicide.
She also claimed she slept on the floor with dogs and was given ‘sanctions’ or ‘punishment’ if she failed to complete tasks.
She said on an earlier occasion, she was given household tasks to perform when her parents were out, but realised she could not do them in time.
She said: ‘I decided I wanted to kill myself because I thought it would be less painful than what they would do to me.’
Deborah Harrison and Jennifer Harrison both deny assault occasioning actual bodily harm.
The trial continues.