‘Kingpin’ Portsmouth dad jailed for forcing daughter to do ‘astonishingly cruel’ caterpillar exercise

Portsmouth Crown Court heard the Portsmouth dad was furious with his child, accusing her of ‘bullying’.

Christopher Wing, prosecuting, said the dad made the child exercise for repeated 30-minute blocks followed by a 15-minute break.

This continued between 2pm and 9pm, with the girl only allowed breaks for a bath and dinner.

Mr Wing said: ‘As a punishment (for the alleged bullying) he made her do some exercises which the crown say were cruel in that she had to stand up facing the wall, then run up and down a corridor doing sit-ups, then an exercise called the caterpillar.

‘It involves pushing her whole body up then straight down to the floor, moving in that fashion.’

The girl, who cannot be identified for legal reasons, suffered carpet burns.

The court heard the man, who The News is not naming to protect the identity of his daughter, would force his household to ‘run around’ him.

‘His displeasure would be known by throwing food against the wall if he didn’t like it or meting out other punishments,’ Mr Wing said.

The man, who has 22 previous offences to his name, admitted child cruelty and two charges of assault occasioning actual bodily harm relating to his wife.

He was ‘extremely vulnerable’ due to his drug and alcohol consumption – having very little memory of the last two decades, his barrister said in court.

But jailing the man for nine months, judge David Melville QC said he acted in an ‘astonishingly cruel way’.

Addressing them man, he said: ‘You caused (the victim) to run up and down, behaving in an extreme way for the best part of a day in circumstances which one has difficulty understanding how any father could do that to anybody.’

He added: ‘It’s a sickening story.’

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The judge revealed the man’s wife said she is still ‘finding it hard to get on with my life’ after his behaviour.

‘I imagine you gave it very little thought,’ the judge said.

Judge Melville added: ‘You seem to think you can act in a way in which you’re the kingpin, everybody rushes around you.’

The judge said he was urged to spare the man jail as he had stopped drinking but that ‘shows you didn’t bother to think about them’ as he could have previously stopped.

A message from the Editor, Mark Waldron

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