Police in Gloucestershire have reacted angrily after evil foster mum Eunice Spry, who beat, abused and starved the children in her care had her sentence reduced on appeal.

Devout Jehovah's Witness Spry, 64, from Tewkesbury, was given a 14-year jail sentence and ordered to pay £80,000 costs at Bristol Crown Court in March last year for subjecting three children to a "horrifying catalogue of cruel and sadistic treatment".

The court heard that Spry forced sticks down the children's throats and made them eat their own vomit and rat excrement.

Trial judge Simon Darwall-Smith told Spry this was the worst case he had come across in 40 years in law.

But appeal judges said yesterday that despite Spry's horrific treatment over a 19-year period, the children's injuries were not as serious as other cases where lesser sentences had been imposed.

Giving the ruling yesterday, Mr Justice Burnett said the part of the sentence which reflected the cruelty and violence should be reduced to 10 years instead of 12.

Together with the two-year sentence for witness intimidation and attempting to pervert the course of justice, Spry will now serve 12 years. Detective Constable Victoria Martell, who has been involved in the investigation for more than two years, said yesterday: "It is disappointing that the sentence has been reduced. In my opinion, the 14-year sentence originally given to Ms Spry was commensurate to the gravity of the offences she committed and the severity of the abuse she inflicted upon the children in her care.

"The whole case, which began in 2004, was extremely shocking and emotional for all involved and while I am pleased that my role and the role of Gloucestershire Constabulary to get justice for the victims was achieved, none of us must forget the appalling abuse the three victims have suffered and the undoubted distress this has caused."

During her trial, the court heard that as punishment for misbehaving, Spry would beat the children on the soles of their feet and force them to drink washing-up liquid and bleach. She even confined one girl to a wheelchair for three years after a car crash in a cynical bid to maximise compensation for the accident.

Spry staunchly denied all the claims made against her and insisted the only physical punishment she ever used was "a smack on the bottom".

But the jury convicted her of 26 charges, ranging from unlawful wounding, cruelty to a person under 16, assault occasioning actual bodily harm and witness intimidation when she threatened one of the children who was to give evidence against her.

The three victims, known as Victim A, B and C, all gave evidence describing how their daily routines were punctuated by random acts of bizarre and sadistic violence at their foster mother's hands.

The abuse was finally discovered after another Jehovah's Witness secretly confronted one of the children about marks to her head caused when Spry rubbed sandpaper over her face.

The offences took place in two of Spry's homes in Gloucestershire between 1986 and 2005.

Mr Justice Burnett said: "All these children have suffered serious psychiatric damage because of the ordeal that they have endured. We have found this case especially difficult to resolve.

"We consider that the sentence of 12 years on account of the cruelty in this case is out of the range which can be inferred as appropriate from previous decisions in this court.

"We are particularly mindful of the fact that in this case, the physical injuries could have been much more serious than mercifully they were."