Foster carer starved children and left boy to eat paint scraped off ceiling of Glasgow home

A foster carer who subjected four children to abuse over the course of a decade has been jailed.

Yvonne Keenan caused one young boy to be fed paint from a ceiling after she made him go to bed hungry.

The 56-year-old abused the children at addresses in Glasgow between 1994 and 2004, including forcing one child to eat cat food as a form of punishment after he touched a button in the kitchen.

She regularly locked the same child in his bedroom and forced him to stand in the corner of a room, facing a wall for hours at a time.

A second child was physically abused by Keenan and was not allowed to sit on furniture in the home.

The abusive carer punished the girl by cutting off her hair and, on one occasion, made her stand outside in the garden, having locked the door.

The girl recalled being dragged off a bed, which caused her head to strike a radiator, and being “physically force-fed” cereal and milk.

The court heard how Keenan would not feed the girl and a younger child, sending them both to bed hungry on regular occasions.

During one incident, the girl scraped paint off the ceiling and fed it to the younger child, who was crying from hunger, as she did not know what else to do.

Keenan also told the child her mother was dead when that was not true.

A third child was threatened with and subjected to physical violence if he did not get home from school within 15 minutes.

She shouted and screamed at the boy on a daily basis and made degrading remarks about a member of his family.

The child was also not fed properly and made to stand facing the wall as a punishment.

Keenan also physically abused a fourth child, who was left living in fear over the course of several years.

The accused was described as a disciplinarian and an angry monster by some of the victims, who are all now adults.

Keenan pleaded guilty to cruel and unnatural treatment of children and was jailed for 32 months at Glasgow Sheriff Court.

Fraser Gibson, procurator fiscal for Glasgow and Strathkelvin, said: “Yvonne Keenan exploited her position of trust to abuse vulnerable young people, who should have been safe in her care.

“Instead, she inflicted unimaginable trauma through her violent and cruel offending over a significant number of years.

“It is thanks to the victims reporting their experience and giving evidence that this prosecution has been made possible.

“We are committed to robustly prosecuting non-recent allegations of abuse involving children including those in care settings.

“I would urge anyone who has experienced similar offending to come forward and report it, regardless of how long ago the offences took place.”