'Evil' mother who locked two youngest children in freezing bedrooms so they got frostbite and shaved head of daughter is jailed for just 18 months

An evil mother who treated her two children like dogs and kept them locked in their bedrooms in conditions so cold they caught frostbite, was jailed for 18 months today.

Over a five-year period Linda Clappison's children were beaten, starved, forced to do manual labour instead of going to school, given cold baths as punishment and shut up in the dark.

Both children had to sleep in their underwear and without bedding or a mattress in a room devoid of toys, and required hospital treatment for frostbite in winter, Hull Crown Court was told.

Mrs Clappison, 46, even managed to fool social services by getting out toys and snacks for a visit and 'made it look like happy families.' 

Son Andrew Clappison told the court he endured the living hell between the ages of 10 and 16 and even attempted suicide.      More