A mother in the Czech Republic is on trial accused of chaining up her two sons and feeding their flesh to relatives.
Klara Mauerova, 31, from the city of Brno, admitted in court to torturing her eight-year-old son Ondrej, and his 10-year-old brother, Jakub.
"It's horrible. I can't understand how I could have acted like this," she told the court.
She and five relatives, all members of the Grail Movement cult, are accused of keeping the young boys tied up inside dog cages and beating them regularly for hours at a time.
Mauerova is also accused of burning her sons with cigarettes and stabbing them with pointed objects, such as forks.
Ondrej and Jakub are being looked after at a sheltered residential home and will need psychiatric help for the rest of their lives, the prosecutor told the court.
The crime was discovered when a neighbour, who had installed a baby monitoring camera, stumbled upon images of Ondrej, who was naked and chained up, according to reports.
Mauerova had installed her own recording device to allegedly watch the torture from her kitchen.
The mother is said to have been brainwashed by cult member 33-year-old Barbora Skrlova, who lived with the family as an 'adopted' 13-year-old girl.
However, after the boys were rescued, Skrlova managed to evade Czech authorities, only to turn up months later in Norway.
She had assumed the identity of a 13-year-old school boy named "Adam", according to reports.
The woman had even attended primary school using the identity with permission from the real boy's father, a fellow sect member.
The trial continues.
http://news.sky.com/skynews/article/0,,30200-1319653,00.html
