YOUTUBE HAS REMOVED a channel that featured children playing with toy guns and whistling after police arrested their adoptive mother for allegedly starving them, locking them in closets and pepper-spraying them.

The Fantastic Adventures channel had more than 700,000 followers and 240 million views.

The seven adopted children told investigators of “having to participate” in the YouTube shows, a court document says.

“They stated they are disciplined in the manners above if they do not recall their lines or do not participate as they are directed to,” says the document filed in Pinal County, Arizona.

They further stated this is one of the reasons their mom took them out of school so they can keep filming their series and they mentioned they have not been in school for years.

The children were aged between six and 15.

One alleged that “her mother would spray her and her siblings with pepper spray all over their face and body,” while another “stated they would go days without food, water,” the document said.

They were also “locked in the closet for days at a time” and two said they were sprayed or pinched in the genitals, it added.

Officers from Maricopa, outside Phoenix, said the children “appeared to be malnourished”.

Arrested last week, Machelle Hackney (47) – known as Machelle Hobson on her channel – was charged with seven counts of child abuse, two counts of child molestation, five counts of unlawful imprisonment and seven counts of child neglect.

Police told AFP today that she remains in custody after a Tuesday hearing, but her two biological sons, also arrested, were released.

Ryan Hackney and Logan Hackney, both 27, are charged with seven counts of failing to report abuse. 

The adopted children also appeared in superhero costumes on the channel, which YouTube took down yesterday. 

- © AFP 2019 

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