Whipped, starved and stabbed: Calgary child abuse trial hears testimony from 1st of orphaned siblings

In an interview room at Calgary police headquarters, a tearful 13-year-old girl stood up, lifted her shirt and showed a child abuse detective dozens of tiny scars she said were inflicted with a barbecue fork by her aunt on 20 different occasions.

That was some of the video evidence presented in court on Tuesday at the trial of an aunt and uncle facing several charges including assault with a weapon.

On one occasion, the girl who was being interviewed on April 6, 2011, byDet. Jason McDonald said she wasn't allowed to eat a meal for four days because her aunt believed she'd lied.

• Orphaned Calgary children 'tortured' by aunt and uncle with needles and lighters, Crown tells trial

Now 19 years old, the girl and her two younger siblings were orphaned when their parents were killed in a car crash in the U.S. in 2006. They were adopted by their aunt and uncle, who moved the family to Calgary where the alleged abuse began.

A publication ban has been imposed on the names of the accusedin order to protect the identity of the children, as the younger two are now in care.

Part of the video of McDonald's interview was played in court on Tuesday while the teen watched from a remote witness room.

The girl said the abuse would take place "when we were behaving bad or when we got bad marks at school."

Sometimes theaunt would forcealong wooden stickinto the children's mouths.

"She would try to get it as deep in as she could," said the child. "Sometimes she'd make me bleed from my mouth."

'It hurt a lot'

The uncle, said the girl, would hit the children with a wooden spoon as they layon their stomachs with socks forced into their mouths.

The aunt and uncle would become angeredby poor grades at school, if the children hadn't done their chores or if they were moving too slowly.

Sometimes, the girl told McDonald,the aunt would put her hand in the oldest child's mouth, dig her nails into her tongue and pull.

"It hurt a lot, and sometimes she'd make us bleed from our mouths," said the girl.

When the house wasn't clean enough, the aunt would put dishwasher soap in her mouth, she said.

Whipped with an electrical cord

If she hadn't finished all her chores cleaning the basement, bathrooms, living room, kitchen, walls and bedroom she was punished by not being allowed to eat dinner, the girl said.

Sometimes the punishment included being placed naked in a cold shower and whipped with an electrical cord, she said.

Earlier in the day, defence lawyers Karen Molle and Kelsey Sitar suggested the 19-year-old's evidence had been tainted and influenced by her two siblings based on new allegations the girl disclosed in interviews subsequent to the initial one on April 6, 2011.

But it wasn't until three years after her initial interview with police that the eldest daughter recalled details about beingforced to wear a soiled diaper,having needles stuck into her tongue and being made to drink her own vomit.

Other siblings to testify

Molle and Sitar suggested that information came after thegirl read her sister's diary or afterspeaking with her siblings.

Court of Queen's Bench Justice Sandy Park will hear from all three siblings and their teachers before determining whether their evidencewill be admitted in the trial.

The first sibling's testimony will continue on Wednesday.

The prosecution team of William Tran and Ken McCaffreywill call the other two children to testify after the oldest daughterhas been cross-examined.

The trial is set to last two weeks.