A 70-YEAR-OLD nurse is today starting a jail sentence for a series of physical attacks on children in her care.

Cynthia Chandler's paedophile husband, Reginald, 73, is already serving eight years for sexually abusing boys at the special children's unit they ran jointly in Harrogate and elsewhere.

They bring to six the number of child abusers convicted through Operation Pudsey, North Yorkshire's biggest investigation into abuse in children's homes.

Between them, the abusers indecently or physically assaulted schoolboys and schoolgirls in two homes over a 30-year period.

Andrew Dallas, prosecuting, told York Crown Court that Cynthia Chandler hit one boy on the head with a stiletto heel, knocked another unconscious with a shovel and set about a third with a brush.

When one boy accidentally cut his fingers, the nurse did not treat them but beat him so badly he collapsed to the floor.

One of her six victims was so desperate to escape from her, he cycled from Harrogate to Manchester.

The nurse punched and pulled the hair of another runaway as she drove him back to the unit.

Judge Jonathan Crabtree told her: "You were supposed to be looking after these difficult boys, not beating them."

Psychiatric nurse Cynthia Chandler, formerly of Harrogate Road, Moortown, Leeds, admitted two charges of wounding and four of causing actual bodily harm, committed between 1964 and 1968 at Wellfield unit, later merged with Fairfields National Children's Home in Harrogate.

The judge accepted she did not know about her husband's sexual crimes. She is currently suspended by the nurses' ruling body.

Mr Dallas said her victims were aged from nine upwards.

A staff member left the unit within a month of the Chandlers taking over because of their "physical chastisement" and use of "verbal weaponry".

For the nurse, Bryan Cox said the attacks were isolated incidents and "not a campaign of terror".

She had been at the end of her tether, possibly suffering from a nervous breakdown and unable to cope with 12 very disturbed boys.

A spokeswoman for the charity, now called NCH Action for Children, said it had co-operated with Operation Pudsey and was helping the victims of abuse.

Fairfield and Wellfield closed several years ago, as did the Barnardos residential school at Springhill, Ripon, the other children's home involved in the operation.

Det Insp Phil Metcalfe, who led the investigation, said it had been a very long and at times difficult inquiry, always requiring high levels of dedication and great sensitivity from the investigating officers.

"The nature of the allegations and the sheer scale of the operation has been demanding, but the fact that the people responsible for these offences are now in prison makes it all worth while," he said.