A SADISTIC stepfather who terrorised two of his partner's three children has been jailed for three years.

Burnley Crown Court heard how the man fired missiles at the two boys with a catapult and set the socks of the younger one, aged just nine, on fire when he was wearing them.

He also hit the older youngster so hard he fell into a wall and suffered a perforated eardrum which left him "mildly deaf," in one ear.

Sentencing the defendant, Judge Lesley Newton said his behaviour had been sadistic and vicious and was not simply a lack of control on his part.

She said the whole family must have lived in an atmosphere of threat and menace.

The judge said she could not imagine how a little boy of nine must have felt when his socks were set alight but added: "I am pretty sure if it were me I would be terrified."

Judge Newton said the physical pain and humiliation the man had caused the boys must have been considerable and they had been left marked physically.

She told the defendant, who can not be named for legal reasons: "You are immature and inadequate and couldn't cope with the responsibilities thrust upon you."

The man, from Burnley, had earlier admitted four counts of cruelty to a child.

David Tempkin, prosecuting, told the court the man had been in a relationship with the victims' mother for several years.

In January the older boy, who was 14 at the time, stole £70 from the defendant and he became angry.

He told the teenager off and then hit him to the side of his face, knocking him backwards.

The boy banged his head against a wall, suffered a perforated eardrum and was left mildly deaf in his left ear.

The defendant also fired a marble at the youth with a catapult after a row.

Roger Baldwin, defending, said there had been a lot of tensions in the defendant's household which occasionally flared up.

He said it had been very difficult for him to enter his guilty pleas and to admit what he had done.

He had had no experience of prison life and it had been very hard for him on remand.