Reports in the guardian newspaper say

A husband and wife have been sentenced for shooting their children with a BB gun as punishment for not doing their chores satisfactorily.

The children were shot daily for four months whenever the parents believed they had stepped out of line, Preston crown court heard.

Their father kept the gun down the side of the sofa and would give it to their mother to use when he left the house.

Jailing the father for two years and handing the mother a 19-month sentence, suspended for two years, Judge Robert Altham said: “This was not the behaviour of immature parents. This was the behaviour of people who had developed a system, a regime of discipline, that involved this form of violence.

read the full report here