Rachid Khadla, from Windsor, Berkshire, violently attacked and manipulated his three children for years, Reading Crown Court heard.

The 56-year-old was found guilty by a jury of assault and cruelty to his children, now all adults.

Sentencing, Judge Kirsty Real described him as "a bully".

The Crown Prosecution Service (CPS) said Khadla was obsessed with fitness and dieting.

He forced his daughter to sign a document to say she would "do lots of exercise" and "never get fat, even until I die", it added.

Prosecutor Alex Krickler told the court Khadla also threw a chair at her, aged nine, causing a keloid on her ear needing "numerous operations and treatments".

"She describes being made to feel worthless and stupid by her father," he said. "There was anxiety and eating disorders."

'Ruined childhoods'

All three children were regularly physically assaulted with a wooden spoon on their hands, and were told who they could be friends with and what activities they could do.

Khadla's behaviour came to light in 2019, when his teenage son told police his father had strangled him and punched him in an attack.

In a victim impact statement, his eldest son said the abuse, which started when he was five, had left him with "long-term mental health issues".

He described his father as a smart man "plotting and calculating every move".

He added the abuse led to him being bullied at school, but it "was almost enjoyable compared to the life I left at home".

Khadla, of Dedworth Road, Windsor, pleaded not guilty to two counts of assault occasioning actual bodily harm and three counts of cruelty to a child.

Passing sentence Judge Real said he had "effectively ruined their childhoods" through "multiple incidents of cruelty over many years".

She said: "You were a bully, and you have been unwilling to accept or acknowledge that."