Father’s pathetic excuse for years of vile and brutal abuse of his own kids – until they bravely raised the alarm from inside their suburban house of horror

A father who routinely beat his children with an electrical cord during a years-long terror campaign had a ‘complete inability to parent’, according to his lawyer.

The man, who cannot be named, now ‘longs’ for his sons and daughters and has been separated from their mother in ‘a complete breakdown of a dysfunctional family’.

‘MS’ will be sentenced in Sydney’s Downing Center District Court after pleading guilty to 26 offences, including nine charges of assault occasioning actual bodily harm.

On Tuesday, defense attorney Penny Marcou read parts of a letter in which middle-aged MS said “not a moment goes by” that he does not regret the cruel treatment his children suffered.

The Crown described the letter as ‘self-serving’, but MS continued to insist that the regular beatings and other abuse he inflicted on his descendants was ‘the biggest mistake of my life’.

“I am disgusted with myself and my behavior,” MS wrote. ‘It was unforgivable. I should have sought help. I should have done more… but I failed my children.”

MADAM, a middle Eastern-born repairman, and CS, his wife who converted to Islam, raised their children in a household where the slightest act of mischief or disobedience was met with violence.

The children were forbidden to go to school, socialize with friends, visit public places or shops or play sports. The girls were not even allowed to cut their hair short.

The large family lived in a series of rental addresses in Sydney, often in the misery of open sewers and vermin.

Physical injuries were hidden from the eyes of the neighbors, with the children not allowed to wear clothing that exposed skin from the ankle to the collarbone.

All names and any information that could identify the children, including the exact size of the family, cannot be published.

The many children, from toddlers to teenagers, were locked in their “disgusting and disgusting” homes and subjected to terrible ordeals.

The father’s iron fist saw him lash out with his weapon of choice – a twisted electrical cord – whenever his children failed in his servile duties.

MS and CS walked a ‘controlling and disciplined home environment for their children who adhere to strict Islamic religious beliefs,” according to a statement of facts filed in court.

According to that document, they were “subjects of physical abuse and abuse throughout their lives” by MS and CS.

“These acts were frequent and often occurred within view of the other victims,” the statement said.

The older girls were homeschooled in between their chores.

Those duties include cooking meals, cleaning, vacuuming, mopping, washing clothes, feeding animals and bathing their younger siblings.

One daughter, H, told Daily Mail Australia that the boys and girls were in fact fed leftovers and wore rags.

“Hand-me-downs, old things from people we knew or rejecting things from the market,” she said.

“The food was the stuff that they would have thrown away or given to the animals because it was too old to eat, that my father had gotten for us.”

MS bit and punched an elementary school-age daughter, called her “fat,” stepped on her face and punched his four-year-old son in the mouth until he bled because he didn’t eat vegetables.

He beat a 10-year-old daughter on her back, legs and arms for more than 15 minutes, leaving marks that were visible weeks later.

The children’s torment only ended after two of the older sisters secretly contacted police anonymously and begged for help.

More than once, the girls, then aged 17 and 19, refrained from telling the truth to the police and then risked discovery by secretly recording the abuse of their little brothers and sisters.

That led to a raid that led to police uncovering the house of horrors lurking in plain sight in the Sydney suburb.

MS appeared in court on Tuesday with the help of an Arabic interpreter and accompanied by three male supporters.

Ms Marcou said her client’s offending was characterized more by “a complete inability to parent” than by anger or a lack of emotional control.

The court was briefly closed as a video was played of MS holding one child after another against a wall and hitting them with an electrical cord.

MS had a “genuine lack of insight” into his abhorrent behavior as a parent until he was taken into custody but was now remorseful, Ms Marcou told the court.

Since his arrest in September 2022, MS was no longer allowed to have any contact with his children, who were taken from the parental home and protected by pending violence orders.

“He understands that there will be no reconciliation, at least in the near future,” Marcou said.

When MS was released on bail in November 2022 after 57 days behind bars, he was not allowed to see his wife and their marriage had failed.

Ms Marcou said MS’s criminal behavior and the sentence he had already received had led to a “complete collapse of a dysfunctional family” and that he was “longing” for his wife and children.

MS had spent the past two years under house arrest and would be suitable for an intensive corrections order rather than full custody, Ms Marcou said.

“He is not a threat to the community in any way,” she told the court.

Crown prosecutor Michael Clark called for a prison sentence for MS, saying his loss of contact with the children – his victims – could not be considered excessive punishment.

“There should remain some hope that some reconciliation will occur in the future,” Clark told the court.

Mr Clark accepted the evidence of MS’s good character but noted a difference between the way he behaved respectfully in public and how he behaved ‘deplorably’ behind closed doors.

CS pleaded guilty to eight counts of common assault, two of assault occasioning actual bodily harm, and three of concealing an offence. In February she was sentenced to a seven-month intensive correction order.

Judge Timothy Gartlemann will sentence MS on Wednesday.