Teaching assistants told a jury how they saw a dad aggressively "throwing" four children into the back of a car when he picked them up from primary school.

They described how the two boisterous and unruly brothers, and their two sisters, were usually scruffy and sometimes arrived with bruises.

Their father, Terrence Eames, (53) is on trial at Leicester Crown Court accused of 26 offences of child cruelty and two counts of actual bodily harm upon their mother, between 1987 and 2000.

One teaching assistant, from the north west Leicestershire school which the children attended, said: "I have seen every one of them being chucked into the back of the car on more than one occasion.

"He'd pick them up and throw them in. It wasn't playful. It was done with aggression."

She said: "Sometimes their lunches were plentiful one day and the next they'd have nothing much, like a chocolate bar.

"They came to school with bruises. It was a regular event, really."

Under cross-examination, she said they later qualified for free school meals.

Another teaching assistant said: "I once saw him haul the children into the back of an open Jeep like a sack of potatoes and just throw them in."

One of the girls who had a bruised forehead said she was "not allowed" to say how it was caused.

The witness said: "She was quite withdrawn and craved affection."

She said: "The two boys always had bruises on them. They were always fighting and quite unruly."

A third teaching assistant said of the eldest boy: "He was forever covered in cuts and bruises. He was a bit nervous around his dad."

Eames, now of Woodville Road, Hartshorne, near Ashby, who left the family home in 2000, denies all the charges.

He claims that his former wife and the four children, now grown up, have falsely made the allegations against him.

In a statement read out in court – which is disputed by the defence – the youngest son, now in his 20s, described being cruelly treated.

Referring to his father, by the name of "Tezza," he stated: "Most days something happened where he would hit one or more of us.

"My brother counted 68 scars on me. Most of these were from Tezza hitting me, sometimes with a metal bar, wood, crowbar, bike chain, bike handle bars or bats, whatever was near him at the time.

"Tezza seemed to want me and (my brother) to fight.

"He'd start slapping one of us around the face, telling us to start to fight the other and then lock us in our room to carry on.

"He'd then let the one out of the bedroom who had the most blood on him.

"He said that fighting would make us stand up for ourselves and get stronger."

He also claimed his father repeatedly hit him in the face when he said he had been teased at school for having crossed eyes.

He stated: "He was hitting me in the face with his hands saying that he'd fix it. He must have hit me about eight times to my eyes on both sides I was really upset and crying."

The trial continues.