A CRUEL mother has been jailed for attacking her six-year-old boy with a table leg during a year of beatings.

Deborah Chapman, 34, of Morpeth Avenue, Darlington, was jailed for seven months at Teesside Crown Court yesterday.

She claimed she was bringing the child up to steer him away from crime and drugs.

But her terrified son told a teacher and then begged a social worker not to send him home, saying: "Tell Mummy not to hit, kick and punch me any more."

Chapman lost her temper when the youngster did not put his toys and clothes away or he if lost things.

The single mother attacked a policewoman who was sent to interview her about her cruelty and she was led from her home in handcuffs, said Yvonne Taylor, prosecuting.

The judge was shown hospital photographs of bruises all over the boy's body and head.

The youngster slapped himself in the face and stomach to demonstrate his suffering, saying: "Mum kicks, punches and slaps me every day and she stands on my foot with her shoes."

Police were called months earlier by a neighbour who heard Chapman screaming at him. She said she hit the child because he would not put his clothes away.

She hit him with the table leg because he lost a screw off the back of a computer game. She woke him up, pushed him against a table, which broke, and instinctively picked up the leg and hit him, the court was told.

The boy told a teacher that she kicked him in the ear after he lost an envelope.

He was taken into care in January and she has lost him for good, said Dan Cordey, mitigating.

Chapman had since been on anger management courses and was allowed to see the boy for only one hour in six weeks.

He added: "She was bringing up the child as a single mother, the father was never on the scene.

"She was anxious to bring him up so that he would not get into trouble, so that he would not commit offences, not take drugs, and so that he would grow up a decent young man.

"Unfortunately, the way that she tried to do that she now realises was totally inappropriate."

Chapman pleaded guilty to child cruelty between June 1, 2004, and May 10 last year, and assaulting Detective Constable Debra Phillips on May 10, with intent to resist arrest.

Jailing her, Judge Les Spittle, who did not issue an order banning identification of the child, said: "He must have been terrified to wonder what was to happen to him next if he did not put his toys away or meet what you required of him.

"The best way to get children not to get into trouble in the future was to lead by example.

"You showed him violence."

Chapman's cries could be heard when the dock door closed behind her and she was led into custody.