A 13-year-old boy has given a graphic account of his mother hitting him across the back with a cricket wicket when he was 7 years old because he had wet himself after she refused to let him go to the toilet.
A 41-year-old Rotorua woman is on trial in the Rotorua District Court before Judge James Weir and a jury.
She is facing one charge of assaulting a child with a weapon in 2005 and two charges of assaulting her daughters when they were aged 6 and 7 in 2007.
The accused wept as the charges were read out to her and entered not guilty pleas to the charges.
She often wept as her son gave his account in a video interview to Child, Youth and Family social workers about the alleged abuse.
A video interview taken in 2009 was shown to the court in which he said he and his sisters had experienced years of abuse from their mother, alleging she regularly hit them, put them outside at night and put mustard, pepper and soap in his sisters' mouths if they swore.
In the interview, the boy said his family had been at the beach and his mother was angry with him when they returned home and told him to go to bed.
He said he told her he needed to go to the toilet but she forced him to go to bed.
"When we came back from the beach she was all grumpy. She told me to go straight to bed. I badly needed to go to the toilet - I peed myself," he said.
"She told me to get down and clean it."
Moments later his mother grabbed a cricket wicket and allegedly hit him across the back about 10 times before his father stopped her, he said.
"She was grumpy ... she's always angry and abuses us ... she swears at us and locks us outside. She locks us out at night, even if it's raining," he said.
He said it was hard to walk after being hit with the cricket wicket.
"She emotionally abuses us every day," he said.
"I would be naughty and she told me to come up to her and she punched me in the face.
"She slaps the girls and punches me."
The boy gave an account of witnessing his mother allegedly hitting his sisters when they lived at Okere Falls because she was angry at them arguing with each other.
His mother walked into the room, slapped one of the girls on the face and threw the other against the wall three times, the court heard.
"My sister got a cut lip," he said. "I just saw mum get angry. She grabbed [my sister] and threw her against the wall. [His sister] cried but mum told her to suck up the crocodile tears."
The boy also witnessed his mother put soap, mustard and pepper in the mouth of one of his sisters after she discovered a swear word in one of her school books.
"She opened her mouth and put the soap, mustard and pepper in. My sister was crying ... she told her 'tough cookies, you are going to get it'," the boy said to the interviewer.
The accused often allegedly "bashed" the children with a wooden spoon and threatened to throw them out of the house if they didn't behave, the boy said in evidence.
Crown Prosecutor Sarah-Louise Tapsell told the court the defendant had assaulted all three children but her defence would be the assaults never happened.
"Keep open minds. Listen to the evidence before the court," she said.
The trial is expected to take three days.