A mother, grandmother and stepfather who subjected three children to years of abuse in a “house of terror” have avoided jail.
Shirley Freeman, Julia Stephen and David McColl’s victims were beaten, starved and psychologically tormented between 2003 and 2012.
Freeman, 51, and Stephen, 69, were earlier found guilty of cruel and unnatural treatment. McColl, 50, admitted the crimes.
At Aberdeen Sheriff Court, Sheriff Craig Findlater said no sentence could “repair the awful childhoods” of the trio’s victims.
Warning: This article contains descriptions of child abuse
Two of their victims, William and Meaghan Murphy, who are now 25 and 28, told Scotland News the violence and cruelty they experienced as children became their normal reality.