A FRIEND of Eunice Spry's family has described herself as "gobsmacked" at revelations the foster mother had abused the children in her care.

The woman, who asked not to be named, said she had known Spry and her daughter from the days when they had run an Appalacian dance club in the Worcestershire village of Eckington.

She said: "I'm absolutely gobsmacked over the whole thing. "I never saw any cruelty. Obviously I would have done something."

The woman remembered how, at village fayres, Spry appeared to be a normal mother buying the children gifts and lollipops, and said, after the abuse had been revealed, she had met up with some of the children, now young adults.

She said: "I said to them, why didn't you say anything to us when you danced? And they said, you don't know what we'd have got if we had.' We were too frightened."

She went on: "You look back now and think well, when I had them here I'd say, would you like a drink?', and they'd say no thank you'. Would you like a biscuit?', no thank you'.

"Looking back that isn't normal behaviour for kids."

She said, at the time, she had thought Spry's parenting was Victorian and added: "They were wonderfully behaved children.

"Too well behaved. I just honestly thought that was her way of bringing them up. She was very old-fashioned."

The friend also described Spry as a clever but secretive woman who had stopped visiting Eckington after an accident in 2000 in which a natural daughter and another girl in her care were killed saying her life was finished.

She also told how, after her arrest, Spry had visited her to ask her to be a witness for her in court but she had refused saying she did not know anything.

She added: "When Eunice came her she was in a terrible state. She was nervous, she looked old. It's not true she said. I haven't heard from her since."

During the case, the court heard the children had lived in squalor but the friend said she had never seen any evidence of the mess at their home in Eckington.

She said: "I didn't see any filth although the house was a building site then.

"If it was filthy when they went there why did social services put them there? Who would leave a child in a dirty place?"

Speaking about the sentence, she added: "She's done it, she deserves it.

"I didn't expect her to have a light sentence. I'm not surprised at the length of it at all.

"But, I said to one of the other dancers, it's unbelievable that she pulled the wool over our eyes. Absolutely unbelievable but she did."