A "Jekyll and Hyde" father who was found guilty of a string of cruelty charges against his children has been jailed for five years.
Terrence Eames, 53, of Leicestershire, was handed the sentence at Derby Crown Court after he was convicted last month of 16 counts of child cruelty.
They included locking his children in a room for prolonged periods of time, hitting them round the head, dangling one over a staircase by his ankles, and holding his son's hand on a hot radiator.
During a two-week trial, Eames denied 26 offences of child cruelty and two counts of actual bodily harm against his former wife.
The offences were all said to have happened between 1987 and 2000, when the family lived at different addresses in north west Leicestershire.
The 53-year-old, now of Woodville Road, Hartshorne, near Ashby, was found guilty of 16 counts of child cruelty and cleared of 10 counts and two assaults on his ex-wife.
The court heard nine of the charges related to locking the children in their rooms for prolonged periods of time, effectively making them prisoners.
Sentencing Eames at Derby Crown Court, Judge Michael Fowler told him: "It's clear that you did get satisfaction from controlling your family and the consequence of that was that they were effectively imprisoned. For years they were confined without adequate entertainment at times, without adequate food, without adequate sanitation."
He said during the trial the court had heard stories of the boys having to urinate through a crack in a box.
"The circumstances in which these children, young as they were at that time, were confined must have been horrific," he said. "It sticks in my memory hearing them describe looking out of the window and watching others pass by obviously wishing that they were part of the world that you were keeping them from."
