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
One of their victims, Rebekah Simpson, 23, said the abuse she received has had a lifelong impact on her mental and physical health.
She said she felt that court did not fully consider the impact the experience has had on her – but she was not disappointed with the sentences.
“Not having to speak to them again is justice for me,” she said.
“I want to be able to walk the streets and know they will be punished if they try and approach me.”
Her siblings, William and Meaghann Murphy, who are now 25 and 28, told BBC Scotland News the violence and cruelty they experienced as children became normal.
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