Mother hits her starving kids out of fear

SYDNEY - An Australian woman choked and hit her starving kids if they tried to get food because she was scared of another woman who hated them, a media report said Wednesday.

The mother has admitted she watched her five kids, aged four to seven, beg for dog food because they were so hungry, Australian news agency APP reported.

The mother, who cannot be named for legal reasons, was giving evidence in a Supreme Court trial in Adelaide of three men who are accused of mistreating her children from February 2008 to June 2008.

The men have pleaded not guilty to aggravated acts endangering life, criminal neglect and aggravated acts creating risk of serious harm.

The prosecution says the five siblings lived in an Adelaide house with 16 other children and three adult couples and were punished by all six adults.

One of them, the children’s mother, who is serving a jail sentence after pleading guilty to neglect, told the court Wednesday that all the adults would choke the children to get the food out of their mouths.

She herself choked them “on lots of occasions”. She told the court she saw her children beg for dog food. One of the adults “cut up a whole heap and gave it to them, so they ate it,” she said.

The children had swollen feet from being made to stand in a line all day and night.

The mother of the five testified that shortly after she moved to Adelaide in 2008, her children were being blamed for fighting between their father and his new partner.

“She got a lot more nastier to them,” the mother said. “She told them she hated them.”

She said she was “scared” of the other woman.

The plight of the children came to light after one of the children, a malnourished five-year-old boy, was taken to hospital in June 2008 almost unconscious and needing help to breathe.

Investigators found five of the 21 children were so thin their bones could be seen. The trial continues.