Two brothers frequently kept caged and tethered in their family home over 13 years reacted bitterly Monday after their adoptive parents were sentenced to nine months in jail for treatment the judge said was horrendous but well-intentioned.
The boys, who were adopted as toddlers and raised in nearby Blackstock, said their parents deserved longer terms and complained the judge appeared to blame them in part for their ordeal.
"I don't feel (justice) has been served," said one boy, 17, as he stood shoulder to shoulder with his 18-year-old brother.
"I feel they should get more time."
The teens were rescued from their home three years ago in a case that horrified police and child-care workers, who found them after a tip from a relative.
Although the boys went to school, home regularly became a house of horrors on evenings and weekends at the hands of the couple they believed were their parents.
When investigators visited the ramshackle two-storey farmhouse northeast of Toronto, one boy was found in a makeshift cage that was padlocked and strapped to a wall.
After school, the boys were tied to their beds, sometimes handcuffed. At one time, one brother was forced to sleep in a dog cage. They were kept in diapers because they couldn't get to the washroom, subjected to rectal examinations and regularly beaten with a variety of household implements.
Court heard the boys lived in such fear that they ate their own feces to hide evidence of accidents and, deprived of water, felt compelled to drink their own urine.
Ontario Court Judge Donald Halikowski blasted the couple's "ill-informed system of discipline" as demeaning and damaging to the boys.
However, Halikowski said their behaviour was "underscored by good intentions," and that there was no evidence the parents were sadistic.
Rather, he said, they were out of their depth when it came to handling boys. The defence said the boys suffered from fetal alcohol syndrome and attention deficit disorder, diagnoses disputed by the Crown.
"There is no doubt they were difficult to raise," said Halikowski, although he added their treatment of the boys was "beyond comprehension."
He sentenced the couple to nine months for assault with a weapon, nine months for forcible confinement, and one month for failing to provide the necessaries of life. The terms all run concurrently, meaning they could be eligible for day parole in less than three months. They will also be on probation for three years.
The couple, who cannot be named to protect the identity of the boys, had pleaded guilty in January to the three charges.
On bail since their arrest three years ago, the two didn't speak as they were handcuffed and taken into custody after sentencing.
The defence called the sentence fair and balanced and, despite the evidence, suggested the abuse was not as frequent as child-welfare officials alleged.
"To suggest, as was the theory, that this abusive conduct took place every day for 12 or 13 years was a far-fetched fantasy. That was not the reality," said lawyer Alex Sosna.
"These children were tethered, these children were abused periodically, but not systematically on a daily basis."
Disappointed Crown attorney Soula Olver, who had called for penitentiary terms of up to eight years, refused to comment but said an appeal is under consideration.
Even close relatives of the couple denounced the sentence as too lenient given the judge's description of the boys' treatment as "near torture."
"What is (the judge) saying to the boys?" said their maternal grandfather.
"This really bothers me. It really does."
Olver had earlier contrasted the couple's treatment of the boys with the kind and loving care they gave their biological son, their grandchildren and even neighbourhood kids.
Child welfare workers rejected Halikowski's suggestion that the discovery of the boys may have caused them more emotional damage than the abuse from their parents.
"We are disappointed," said Wanda Secord of the Durham Children's Aid Society.
"We had hoped for a stronger sentence."
Court heard earlier the woman, 43, and her husband, 51, went to Saskatchewan in the late 1980s to adopt her sister's children because she was dying of substance abuse and couldn't care for them.
The younger brother has denounced his adoptive mother as a "stupid bitch" and said he didn't have a childhood "because of her stupidness."
The older boy has said the "unbearable" crib incidents continue to haunt him.
Both are in separate foster care and going to high school.
