Child C

In April 2007, 62-year-old Eunice Spry was sentenced to 14 years in prison for the systematic wounding, cruelty and assault of the vulnerable children whose welfare had been entrusted to her. Her Gloucestershire home should have been a refuge. Instead it became a prison where, over the course of 20 years, her charges were routinely abused and tortured. To the outside world, Jehovah’s Witness Spry presented herself as a pillar of the community. Behind closed doors she was a sadistic tyrant who beat the children with metal bars, forced wooden sticks down their throats and made them eat lard, bleach, vomit and faeces. The details of the trial horrified the nation, and attracted considerable press attention. Now, for the first time, one of the victims – known in the case as ‘Child C’ and now 19 years old – tells the full, shocking story of what went on in Eunice Spry’s house of evil. Child C is a gripping, heartbreaking story of enforced isolation, psychological and physical abuse and a childhood denied. Despite all he has been through, Christopher Spry is a survivor with a zest for life. With his former foster mother in prison, he can finally tell the story of his suffering and what it is like to grow up brutalised and abandoned with no one to hear your plight.