Adoptive mother convicted of child cruelty

EXETER, England, April 2 (UPI) -- A British court convicted a 43-year-old woman of child cruelty for pushing her 12-year-old adopted son's face into a plate of hot spaghetti.

An Exeter Crown judge gave the unidentified Exeter woman a conditional discharge, barring her from adopting again, after she pleaded guilty to one charge of child cruelty.

The woman, one of the first single women in Britain allowed to adopt under a 2002 law, had been accused of 10 instances of cruelty to the unidentified boy, who was under age 12 when she adopted him, The Times of London reported.

The boy testified other abuse included kicking him on the floor and making him bend over so she could lie on top of him to punish him for not cleaning his teeth, Britain's Independent Television News reported.

The woman testified the boy had come from a troubled background and she abused him for four years after her calls for help went unheeded.

Judge Mark Evans said, "Clearly the signs were there but they weren't picked up."

The boy has been moved to a new home, the Times said.