Man Whipped Sons For Playing With Dolls, Eating Sweets, Losing Fight

A man was jailed Wednesday for beating and physically torturing his three sons for years.

Karl Gettings, 56, of Newport, Wales, was sentenced to 18 years in prison with an extended license of six years, which was supposed to run concurrent to a similar sentence that he is already serving, Mirror Online reported.

Among the campaign of abuse that Gettings subjected his sons to, was an instance where he taped a number of lit cigarettes to one of his son's mouth and forced him to smoke till he fell sick, the Cardiff Crown Court heard.

In another instance, the father woke one of his sons in the middle of the night, told him that he needed to "teach him a lesson" and took him to a local park. The boy, who was a teenager then, wet himself in fear. Gettings then proceeded to punch his son in the face and stomach and leave him there for an hour.

When the same son turned 16, Getting decided to test him by giving him two options - to be beaten and left out in the street or to run in front of his van until it stopped or he was run over. The boy chose the latter and was chased by his father, who drove the vehicle, occasionally speeding and bumping his son’s legs as the victim ran for his life.

Another son was attacked by Gettings with a belt and a whip after he was caught eating sweets and playing with dolls. A similar punishment was doled out for one of his sons for losing a fight to a 20-year-old man.

Gettings also tasked one of his sons, then aged 11, to fix another man's car overnight. He punched him up in the morning when the latter was unable to comply. Distressed, when the son tried to take his own life, his father caught him in the act. Calling him a “selfish little b----,” Gettings beat him up again.

When one of them tried to call the police, he was dangled out of the window by Gettings. The same son was also slapped till he fell unconscious after he was caught stealing money from a man’s pockets.

The presiding Judge Tracey Lloyd-Clarke condemned the abuse as the most "persistent cases of child cruelty" ever reported.

"There was sadistic violence from young childhood and it's quite clear the mental scars left from this defendant's behavior will last for the rest of their lives. They were brutalized by this defendant and brought up to consider violence as natural and were virtually trained by the defendant to use violence in ordinary everyday life. What the defendant did by beating and controlling children was in my opinion the actions of a brute and a coward,” Lloyd-Clarke added.

Prosecutor Roger Griffiths QC also took testimonies from two of Getting’s sons, who were presently adults.

"I suffered physical and mental abuse at the hands of my father. Since a very early age my father bullied me,” the first son said. “He was very controlling to myself and my brothers. He was brutal towards me and tortured me. It led me to a life of crime and was I sent to prison - on one occasion I asked to be sent there to be away from my father. My life cycle was affected by the way I was treated and will always have an impact on me.”

“I remember he beat me and I wet myself and gave me a black eye and if I misbehaved he reminded me of it and threatened to do it again. I still have flashbacks about him hitting me,” he added.

The second one said: "From a very young age as a result of the treatment by Karl he made me feel worthless and my life didn't matter to anyone. He took away my childhood. Karl has made me feel heartless and I find it difficult to show my emotions as Karl would say that would be showing weakness. We were beaten regularly and made to feel it was our fault. The pain inside has never left me and I still feel it to this day and I think it will never go away.”

Gettings had been convicted of raping two women and sexually assaulting another in June, for which he was already serving time in prison. Overall, he was found guilty of three counts of rape, three counts of indecent assault, two counts of assault by penetration, two counts of unlawful wounding, seven counts of assault occasioning actual bodily harm, one count of threats to kill, and 24 child cruelty offences.

The judge also subjected Gettings to a restraining order according to which, he was to refrain from contacting his sons.