A girl described by the prosecution as a real life Cinderella has told how her father turned her into a household slave while treating her three sisters as princesses.

Joanne Foley was dragged out of her bed and forced to clean the toilet or scrub the kitchen until it was spotless while her siblings were showered with love and presents, Exeter Crown Court heard.

She was beaten, almost drowned in a bath, force fed until she gagged on her own vomit and even forbidden to mention her real mother.

Former nurse John Foley, now 73, told her he despised her and she disgusted him and told her 'you are a burden who should not be here'.

Foley, of Newton Abbot, denies 13 charges of child cruelty dating from the ages of four to 16.

His barrister, Mary McCarthy, who showed Joanne 34 photos from the family album which showed her joning in family events, was told by Joanne they did not really reflect what was going on.

Joanne's half-sister Sarah told the court on Wednesday that foley had threatened to kill Joanne several times.

'My father bullied her every single day. She did all the chores, it was like living in an Army camp...

'he called her ugly and fat, screaming at her... He threatened to kill her a number of times. I dream about it every night, it is a recurring nightmare,'said Sarah Foley.

The court hear that when Joanne just five he told her he was going to send her away and wrapped her in sticky tape before bundling her into a holdall. Her mouth and eyes were covered by the tape and she could barely breathe.

She was sent to her room during family Christmas parties and imprisoned in it for an entire summer holiday during which her sisters were banned from speaking to her, said Joanne.

She was only eight at the time and spent her days watching a farmer working in the fields near her home and writing pathetic post-it notes saying sorry, although she had no idea what she'd done wrong.

He ordered her to do all the housework and laid traps by hiding a single hair behind the lavatory bowl and then forcing her to clean it over and over again until he was sure it was spotless.

He bullied her into becoming a majorette, forced her to practice her twirling for hours on end outside in the rain, and punished her if she failed to win competitions.

From the age of five she was told she would have to leave home when she was 16 and, at Christmas, while her sisters got dolls and toys, she was given household goods like plastic jugs which were put in a box for her to use when she was forced out.

Her ordeal ended when she was kicked out in the middle of the night with no warning and told she would never he allowed to see her sisters again.

Foley treated the three daughters by his second marriage completely differently. Joanne, now aged 27 and a mother-of-two, has not seen her father since that day in 1999 and she was shielded from him by a curtain.

She sobbed as she told the jury how the abuse started when she was taken to live in Devon with her father and his new partner, who she was ordered to call mum.

She said: 'I remember thinking about my mother. I never forgot her. If I mentioned her I'd get really badly told off. I had to call her It, or That Thing, or worse.

'My father made it clear he just hated me. He told me that every day. I just craved love and wanted cuddles but all the time he told me I was ugly, disgusting and he wished I'd never been born and wished I was dead.

'Every day he said he despised me. He'd push past me and tell me to get out of his sight. It was non-stop. He was like the master in the house.

'I could not think for myself or have my own personality. He was abusive physically and mentally. He pulled my hair and slammed by head against doorways. He had such a fiery temper and would slap me for no reason or stamp on my fingers while I was sitting on the floor.

'When I was five he just flipped and put white tape all over me. He bound my hands and ankles. I don't remember wearing anything and it hurt when the tape was pulled off me.

'He put it across my mouth and eyes. I could not see and was in the suitcase and I was really frightened. I struggled to breathe because I was all cramped.

'My stepmother didn't stand up to him but she told him not to do it and she got me out. Some of the tape he'd used was put on a shelf and I was told if I was naughty it would happen again.

'He would pull out lumps of my hair for no reason. It seemed to give me pleasure. I was too petrified to tell anyone what he was doing.

'There was a definite divide with my sisters. I was not treated as a member of the family. I was treated as a slave and a burden who shouldn't be there. He called my sister Sarah Fave, short for favourite.

'From about nine I was expected to do all the washing up and drying and putting things away. I had to polish the house, clean the toilet and iron. The others never had to. All the menial chores fell to me. If anything was left dirty or there was a mark on a plate I was pulled into the kitchen and made to do it again.

'I was there for hours sometimes redoing everything until it was up to his standard. If I was in bed and he got a spoon out which was not dried up properly he'd drag me out and make me do it again.

'If there was scum left in the sink he'd some and push it into my mouth or rub it into my face. He'd lay traps by putting a hair behind the toilet or a piece of tissue behind the sink. Then he'd check them and make me do them again and again and again.

'At Christmas my sisters got everything they asked for but I got things like jugs or lemon squeezers and told I would need them for when I left home at 16. They were all kept in a box in my room. At present time I was sent to my room because he said he wanted to spend time with his family.

'I got a Barbie if I was lucky but most of the time it was household stuff.

'When I was six he made me join the majorettes. Sometimes I had to spend hours practicing in the rain and I was not allowed to come indoors or have a drink until I was perfect. If I came second in competitions he'd go mad.

'If I left food it was kept out overnight and I had to finish it cold the next morning. There was one occasion, when I was very young, five to seven or eight, when he dragged me upstairs by my hair and put me in a bath.

'He pushed me under water and I thought he was trying to kill me. I thought I would drown then he pulled me out and told me to get dry and get downstairs and if I didn't finish my cereal in a minute he'd do it again.

'I tried to get it down as fast as I could but I failed and he did the same thing four or five times, holding me under water longer each time.

'He would smack me sometimes. I remember once he pulled down my bottom half and underwear and held me over a bed and smacked me so hard I screamed because I hoped someone would hear and rescue me. Nobody did.'

One summer she was confined to her small box room all holiday and her sisters were forbidden to see her. She was only allowed out to go to the toilet and food was brought to her.

She said: 'I had a pad of post-it notes and I would write how sorry I was, even though I didn't know what I'd done wrong. I promised to be the perfect child and sneak out and stick them on my father's bedside table.

'He found them and I heard him and my stepmother laughing and scrunching them up and throwing them away. In the end I tore up some of the notes and made a pattern on the bedroom floor which said sorry and I was let out.'

She was booted out of the house when 16 and traced her real mother, who looked after her. She did not complain to police until her younger sister was reunited with her via Facebook and contacted detectives.

Joanne said: 'I didn't want to bring all this back up again. I would rather not go through it again if I had the choice, but what he did was wrong.'

Sean Brunton, prosecuting, earlier told the jury: 'He treated her like a modern day Cinderella, but there was no Prince Charming.'

The trial continues.