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Police discovered an eight year old boy locked in a shed with minimal supplies.

We first reported this horrible news in December 2015.

Police discovered an eight year old boy living in a shed on a remote Elands property, northwest of Taree, on Friday when they uncovered a “sophisticated hydroponic set-up” containing 225 marijuana plants.

The boy was found in a two-metre squared room at the back of a shed that had no insulation and only contained a mattress and a bucket.

He told police he has been kept in the shed for more than three weeks, enduring storms and high temperatures.

He was only allowed outside to help with household chores.

Detective Inspector Peter McKenna said police had received intelligence about drugs being grown on the property, but had only found the children upon arrival.

“The door to the small room in the shed was locked from the outside and police will allege that the boy was mistreated and only allowed out of the shed for chores and sometimes food,” he said.

The boy, alongside his 9 year old sister and two other siblings, the youngest of which is just 12 months old, were placed in the care of the Department of Family and Community Services.

The boy’s mother, 26 and her fiancé, 28, were arrested and charged with cultivating a large commercial quantity of a prohibited plant and detaining a person with intent of financial advantage.

Update 22 August 2017

The father who assaulted and locked up his stepson in a corrugated iron shed has pleaded guilty in a Sydney court, reports 9 news. 

The boy’s biological mother was also jailed for a maximum three years and eight months.

Now 10, the boy suffered sickening psychological and physical abuse at the hands of his parents for weeks on end during 2015.

The 29-year-old stepfather pleaded guilty to six charges, including unlawful imprisonment, failing to provide the necessities of life and assault.

He will be sentenced in April 2018.

If you have concerns at all please contact 000 or Lifeline on 13 11 14

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  • at least this child has the resources now to start a new better life! that poor kid deserved way better! i don’t know how anybody could treat a child like that! what monsters that the poor child has had to endure

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  • Hope this young lad gets all the help he needs and those parents are locked away for a long time. Disgusting thing to happen.

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  • Disgusting. How could you do that to someone.

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  • Utterly despicable! Our justice system really needs an overhaul! They are getting a mere slap on the risk that poor kid will probably never be the same again!

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  • “The boy’s biological mother was also jailed for a maximum three years and eight months.”
    What sort of justice is that? AND the father will be sentenced in April 2018. Whats the hold up?
    Lock them up and throw away the key.
    Pray the poor children are getting all kinds of help.

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  • Poor kid. The parents will probably get better treatment in jail than what they did to him

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  • I don’t think they realize at all, Ellen! :-(

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  • Poor children ! I wonder if these parents realize the damage they’ve brought upon their children. Hope & pray these kids find ongoing counseling, support and love in their lives !

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  • Lock them away and throw away the key! They don’t deserve to have children or be allowed to have any contact with any other human being!

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  • 3 years and 8 months for doing that to your own child is disgusting. Its just an insult to those kids.

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  • Poor little child. There surely are some crazy people in the world. :-(

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  • disgusting vile creatures

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  • Horrible parents that deserved to be locked up for a long time.

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  • Why are they waiting so long to sentence the step-father? There is enough types of child abuse to keep him in gaol for awhile physical, physological, emotional. SA courts would throw the book at him. He wouldn’t get just one child abuse charge; then they would add all the other charges. I hope he wasn’t allowed bail at all. There is no children left in either his or their Mother’s care. They don’t think about that if the gaol parents for Centrelink fraud anyway. Beggining of High School age, I know one family whose 2 high school children were left to fend for themselves until other relatives found out and stepped in to care for them.

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  • How can you do that to your own children?

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