A father who routinely whipped his children with an electric cable during a years-long campaign of terror was “completely unfit to be a father”, according to his lawyer.
The man, who cannot be named, now “longs” for his sons and daughters and has separated from his mother in “a complete breakdown of a poorly functioning family unit.”
‘MS’ is being sentenced in Sydney’s Downing Center District Court after pleading guilty to 26 offences, including nine counts of assault occasioning actual bodily harm.
On Tuesday, lawyer Penny Marcou read segments of a letter in which the middle-aged MS said that “not a moment goes by” and that she has no regrets about the cruel treatment her children endured.
The Crown described the letter as “interesting” but MS maintained that the regular beatings and other abuse he inflicted on his offspring were “the biggest mistake of my life.”
“I am disgusted with myself and my behavior,” MS wrote. ‘It was unforgivable. I should have sought help. “I should have done more… but I have let my children down.”
EM, a medium Eastern-born repairman and CS, his converted Islamic wife, They raised their children in a home where the slightest act of mischief or disobedience was met with violence.
Children were prohibited from going to school, socializing with friends, attending public places or stores, or playing sports. Girls were not even allowed to cut their hair.
A father who routinely whipped his children with an electric cable during a years-long campaign of terror was “completely unfit to be a father”, according to his lawyer. The photo shows one of the man’s daughters.
The extended family lived at a series of rental addresses across Sydney, often in the squalor of open sewage and vermin infestation.
The physical injuries were hidden from the eyes of neighbors, and the children were prohibited from wearing clothing that revealed skin from the ankle to the collarbone.
Not all names or any information that could identify the children, including exact family size, can be published.
The multiple children, from toddlers to teenagers, had been kept inside their “disgusting and disgusting” homes and subjected to horrific experiences.
The father’s iron fist saw him attack with his favorite weapon, a bent electrical cord, whenever his children failed to complete his list of slave chores.
EM and CS ran a ‘controlling and disciplined family environment for their children who followed strict Muslim religious beliefs,” according to a statement of facts presented to the court.
According to that document, “throughout the victims’ lives, each of them was subjected to physical abuse and mistreatment” by MS and CS.
“These acts were frequent and often occurred in full view of the other victims,” the statement said.
‘MS’ is being sentenced at Downing Center District Court after pleading guilty to 26 offences, including nine counts of assault occasioning actual bodily harm.
The older girls were homeschooled on their chore list.
Those tasks included cooking, cleaning, vacuuming, mopping, washing clothes, feeding the animals, and bathing her younger siblings.
One daughter, H, told Daily Mail Australia that the boys and girls were basically fed scraps of food and dressed in rags.
“Used items, old things from people we knew or things rejected from the market,” he said.
“The food was what they threw away or would have given to the animals because they were too old to eat, and that my father got for us.”
MS bit and spanked an elementary school-aged daughter, called her “fat” and stepped on her face, and hit her four-year-old son in the mouth until he bled for not eating vegetables.
He whipped a 10-year-old daughter on the back, legs and arms for more than 15 minutes, leaving marks that were visible weeks later.
The children’s torment only ended after two of the older sisters secretly contacted the police anonymously asking for help.
The large Islamic family lived in squalor in a house with sewage and vermin, where children were enslaved to stay clean or risk having their father whipped with an electric cable.
More than once, the girls, then ages 17 and 19, refrained from telling the truth to police and then risked discovery by secretly recording attacks on their little brothers and sisters.
That sparked a raid that led police to discover the house of horror lurking in plain sight in Sydney’s suburbs.
MS appeared in court on Tuesday assisted by an Arabic interpreter and accompanied by three male supporters.
Marcou said his client’s offending was characterized more by “a complete inability to be a parent” than by anger or a lack of emotional control.
The court was briefly closed while a video played in which MS lined up one child after another against a wall and whipped them with an electric cable.
MS had a “genuine lack of understanding” of his appalling behavior as a parent until he was taken into custody, but was now remorseful, Marcou told the court.
Since his arrest in September 2022, MS had not been allowed any contact with his children, who were removed from the family home and protected by apprehended violence orders.
Initially, the girls were terrified that their parents would find out about their reports to the police.
An email sent to police said: “Hello, I hope you are well.” I’ve been abused my whole life and I’m fed up. But I don’t want the people who did that to me to go to jail. Despite what they have done to me I will never be the same’
“He understands that there will be no reconciliation, at least in the foreseeable future,” Ms. Marcou said.
When MS was released on bail in November 2022, after 57 days behind bars, he was prevented from seeing his wife and his marriage broke down.
Marcou said MS’s criminal conduct and the punishment he had already received had caused a “complete breakdown of a poorly functioning family unit” and that he was “pining” for his wife and children.
MS had spent the last two years under house arrest and would be suitable for an intensive correction order rather than full-time custody, Marcou said.
“He is not a threat to the community in any way,” he told the court.
Crown prosecutor Michael Clark called for MS to be jailed and said his loss of contact with the children, his victims, could not be considered extra-curial punishment.
“There would have to be some hope that there could be some reconciliation in the future,” Mr Clark told the court.
Clark accepted evidence of MS’s previous good character, but noted a disparity between how he behaved respectably in public and how he behaved “deplorably” behind closed doors.
CS pleaded guilty to eight counts of common assault, two of assault occasioning bodily harm and three of concealing an indictable offence. In February she was sentenced to a seven-month intensive correction order.
Judge Timothy Gartlemann will sentence MS on Wednesday.