I just dont understand... how could anyone derive any sort of pleasure from this?
http://www.theage.com.au/news/world/...697153103.html
Mother films two toddlers in 'dog fight'
Tom Palmer, London
April 22, 2007
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A MOTHER who forced her two toddlers to attack each other with weapons and filmed the fight has been spared jail by a British court.
Zara Care, with her sisters, Serenza and Danielle Olver, and her mother, Carole Olver, forced the two toddlers to punch each other in the face.
The four women also goaded the two-year-old boy and three-year-old girl, who cannot be identified for legal reasons, to hit each other with a magazine and a hairbrush and when one did not fight they called him a "wimp" and a "faggot".
The fight was filmed on a home video recorder and was found by chance by the children's father who is in the army and had returned from a tour of duty in Iraq.
He saw the camera and decided to look for some footage of his children playing to show their grandparents but instead found the fight and reported it to social services.
All four women, from Plymouth, Devon, had earlier pleaded guilty to child cruelty and were given 12-month sentences suspended for two years at Plymouth Crown Court on Friday.
They also were each ordered to carry out 100 hours of community service and banned from working with children.
Passing sentence, Judge Francis Gilbert said he found the film "shocking to watch".
"You laughed at them, you mocked them, you swore at them," he said. "You compelled them to hit each other even though they clearly did not want to. You were cruel, callous, clearly causing the children to hurt each other for your own pleasure."
During the fight, both children were at different times reduced to tears and were shouted at to carry on, the court heard. At one stage, the boy was cheered for using a magazine as a weapon and repeatedly hitting the girl around the head, and later a hairbrush was thrown into the room for them to use.
Care, 21, pleaded guilty to causing or procuring the children to be ill-treated in a manner likely to cause unnecessary suffering or injury.
Danielle, 19, Serenza, 29, and Carole Olver, 48, pleaded guilty to jointly inciting the ill-treatment of children.
Investigating police officers described the footage as shocking and said that all of those who had seen it were stunned.
At one stage, the boy tried to get away and climbed into an armchair at which point the women shouted at the little girl to punch him again.
The court heard that, when interviewed by police, Carole Olver said: "I didn't see any harm in toughening them up — I done the same with my own children."
Prosecutor David Gittins told the court the father described the footage to police as being "like a dogfight".
"What he saw was not two children playing, but an eight-minute film of them being forced to fight," Mr Gittins said.
"He was reduced to tears. They were encouraged to hit each other with increasing levels of violence."
Wes Cuell, of the National Society for the Prevention of Cruelty to Children, said fostering aggression between children was totally unacceptable.
"This sort of cruel and irresponsible behaviour can seriously harm the emotional and psychological development of a child," he said.
The chief executive of anti-bullying campaigners Beatbullying, Emma-Jane Cross, said: "How on earth can we as a society prevent bullying when role models behave like this?
"Evidence suggests that bullying is learned behaviour and this is a unique insight into that learning process."
Absolutely heartbreaking.
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