A COUPLE who carried out a campaign of child abuse on two children have been convicted.

Lisa Pratt, 36, and Andrew Clent, 30, were each charged with a string of child cruelty charges at a number of addresses in Witney between January 2010 and April 2015.

As the trial at Oxford Crown Court came to an end yesterday Pratt and Clent, both of Mercury Close, Bampton, were found guilty by a jury of seven men and five women of four counts of cruelty and one of assault occasioning actual bodily harm for Pratt.

They were both cleared of one count each of child cruelty on one of the boys who is now aged 19.

During the trial the court heard how Pratt and Clent would carry out numerous acts of child abuse including 'force feeding' children by holding 'eating competitions.'

On one incident one of the victims who cannot be named for legal reasons was strangled with a towel before passing out and not coming around again for 20 minutes.

The acts of cruelty came to an climax during a family barbecue held in April 2015 in which one boy was assaulted by Pratt.

Neighbours had recounted seeing violent scenes during the two-week trial.

One broke down in tears as she gave evidence last week and described the boy as ‘screaming’ telling jurors the defendants were ‘hurting’ him.

She added she heard ‘noise’ from outside her home before she went upstairs to look out her bedroom window.

She said: “I just heard he boy [say] ‘you’re hurting me can you let me go. He looked very scared.”

She said the pair were holding down the boy on the ground for about 20 minutes.

In another incident one victim said that he had witnessed Pratt suffocating another child with a towel causing him to ‘black out.’

He said: “It made me feel really sad and upset and at night time I would cry. I never told anyone because I was too scared."

Pratt and Clent will be both sentenced at Oxford Crown Court at a hearing to be held on November 23.