A west Auckland father has been jailed for three years for his part in the sustained and horrific parental abuse of two children.
The 33-year-old man was sentenced to spend at least two years in jail when he appeared in Auckland District Court on Tuesday.
He had earlier admitted two representative charges of child abuse: neglect or cruelty of a child and assaulting a child.
Court documents said the man used a vacuum cleaner pipe and a broomstick to beat his nine-year-old daughter.
He was sentenced to three years in prison for neglect and a further year, to be served concurrently, on the assault charge.
The maximum penalty for neglect of a child is five years' jail, while the maximum penalty for assault on a child is two years.
Dubbed one of the country's worst abuse cases in which a child has survived, the man's 31-year-old wife was last year sentenced to seven and a half years' jail, with a non-parole period of five years.
The couple have name suppression to protect the identity of their children, who were nine and seven when the abuse was discovered in 2010.
The girl was found hiding in a cupboard in her home. She was starving, dehydrated, bruised and suffering from broken bones and anaemia from internal bleeding, and her scalp had been half torn off.
The mother, who had written to Prime Minister John Key asking for help before the abuse was uncovered, pleaded guilty to 25 charges, including tearing off the girl's toe nail and pouring boiling water and salt over the bleeding toe.
She wrote abusive comments on the girl's body, kicked her in the vaginal area, and assaulted her with weapons, including a machete, broom handle and table leg.
More than 25 social agencies had dealt with the family, and a ministerial inquiry into the case made 13 recommendations to prevent such abuse going undetected and unaddressed.
NZN