A UK couple who forced two children under eight to fight while they laughed have been jailed.
The couple, Ian Barclay, 20, and Gemma Mattinson, 26, forced the boy and girl to fight, and could be heard laughing and cheering in the background of the videotaped incident.
The children were heard sobbing as the girl was ordered to punch, kick and hit the boy with a broom, the Daily Mail reported.
The video, taken on a mobile phone by another person, shows Barclay dragging the boy across the floor and banging him into a radiator after he tried to hide from the attacks behind a sofa.
The three-minute video left a number of people distressed after it was played in the Newcastle Crown Court.
Prosecutor Glenda Turnbull told the court: "The defendants encouraged the children to fight each other.
"They were both instructing the girl how to attack the boy, telling her what to do, bringing the children together, providing her with plastic sticks and a broom to use against him.
"The video footage is distressing, the children are crying."
The children were seen being pushed back together and urged to continue fighting despite trying to separate from each other.
Barclay and Mattinson were arrested by police after the person who filmed the incident showed it to a relative of one of the children.
Barclay admitted it was "a joke that had gone too far".
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