AN elderly couple have appeared before a jury at Worcester Crown Court charged with cruelty to children they fostered and adopted.

The 80-year-old wife is accused of eight counts of child cruelty between 1964 and 1999.

Her 78-year-old husband is charged with six counts of child cruelty, four of indecent assault on children and three of indecency with a child.

His crimes were between 1983 and 1999, alleged prosecutor Simon Phillips.

The couple admitted to police they were strict disciplinarians but deny all 21 charges, alleged to have happened while they were living in Inkberrow and Redditch.

The jury was told that children were beaten with wooden slats and household implements and two girls were forced to fight each other.

One boy allegedly had his head held under water to make him believe he would drown and made to dress in girl’s clothing to humilitate him.

Mr Phillips said one girl had a kettle of water poured over her and another was slapped so hard the blow knocked her into a fridge-freezer.

The wife is accused of throwing another girl against a table, breaking her arm.

Mr Phillips said the wife was cruel to her own children when married to another man in the 1960s but continued the behaviour when she married her second husband.

They became short-term foster parents through Worcestershire’s social services department and adopted some of the children who came to live with them.

In 1997 the NSPCC investigated the couple but there was no prosecution.

The children were either told to say nothing or were too scared to speak out, the jury was told.

But in 1999 three of the alleged victims went to police.

Four other people later made similar complaints.

All seven complainants are due to give evidence in the two-week trial.

Mr Phillips said that the husband on trial also carried out sexual abuse on both male and female victims.

The couple, who now live in Redditch, cannot be named in order to prevent the identification of the complainants.

The trial continues.