The boy who was restrained, tortured and sexually abused in the basement of his family's home says in a recorded victim impact statement played in court that he's doing better, but his physical scars remind him of his suffering.

The boy was 11 when his parents were arrested in February 2013 and is now 14 years old. He appeared in Ontario Superior Court in Ottawa on Tuesday via a video recorded last week.

The boy looked healthy, though his voice sometimes cracked. He said he avoids answering questions about the scars on his body and that he's reminded in the shower about what he endured when he sees the red marks around his ankles from his restraints.

He said he knows he needs psychological help, and he one day hopes to be able to put the memories aside.

The boy also said he sometimes cries randomly and that he hates it when people get mad at him, which makes him feel like he should get on his knees and say sorry.

While being hurt by his father in the basement, he remembers thinking that if he ever had children, he wouldn't do that to them, the boy said.

The lengthy trial of the boy's father and stepmother took place at Ontario Superior Court in Ottawa. (Trevor Pritchard/CBC)

5-year sentence would be 'just and fit,' Crown argues

The recorded video statement came during the sentencing hearing for the boy's stepmother, who legally adopted him. Last month, she was found guilty of assault with a weapon and failing to provide the necessaries of life for the boy.

Her Mountie husband — the boy's father — was found guilty of aggravated assault, sexual assault causing bodily harm, forcible confinement and failing to provide the necessaries of life.

The father had been suspended from the RCMP without pay, but on Tuesday RCMP officials told CBC News that he had been fired on Dec. 11 — three weeks after being found guilty.

He is expected to be sentenced in March.

The pair cannot be named due to a publication ban that protects the boy's identity.

In court on Tuesday, the Crown asked for a five-year prison sentence — the maximum sentence possible for failing to provide the necessaries of life — and argued that the woman is smart and educated but withheld food from the starving boy.

She was on maternity leave "and made no conscious effort to feed him or protect him," Crown attorney Marie Dufort argued.

Defence lawyer Anne London-Weinstein asked for a jail sentence of one year and nine months, arguing that while the stepmother's conduct was grossly negligent, it wasn't "intentionally cruel."

London-Weinstein also argued that her client should be credited for time already spent in jail and for her strict bail condition which placed her virtually under house arrest.

Ontario Superior Court Justice Robert Maranger, however, rejected that claim. He is expected to deliver the woman's sentence on Jan. 20.

Aunt says stepmom 'abandoned' her duty

Before the boy's statement, his aunt — the sister of the boy's birth mother — told court in her own victim impact statement that her family has been left "shattered" by the ordeal.

The aunt and her husband, who live in Montreal, came every day of the lengthy trial.

I thought you were a kind person. - Aunt of abused boy, addressing his stepmother

At one point, the aunt addressed the stepmother directly, saying she "totally abandoned" her duty to the boy, making dinner for the rest of her family while she knew the boy was starving and chained in the basement.

"I thought you were a kind person," the aunt told her.

The boy's stepmother sat in the prisoner's box with her head down, crying,

Graphic evidence

The stepmother and her husband had been out on bail for the trial, but after the guilty verdicts in November, Maranger ordered them back into custody to await sentencing.

The pair were arrested after the boy escaped in what Ottawa police sources told CBC News was the worst case of child abuse the force had seen.

During the trial jurors were shown graphic videos taken from the former Mountie's cellphone of the thin boy naked, crying and restrained in the basement.

The videos, made one month before the couple was arrested in February 2013, show the small boy breathing heavily and looking gaunt with his ribs sticking out. A man is heard repeatedly taunting and humiliating the boy, who was tied to the basement wall.

Onlookers inside the courtroom were seen wiping away tears and the last video left Maranger shielding his face.

"This was a very difficult trial. That a parent could do the things that were done to [the victim] was gut-wrenching," Maranger said in November while announcing the guilty verdicts.

"The viewer is left with images that are forever etched in the darkest, saddest recesses of that person's memory. That being said, however, the fact that this half-starved, burned and battered 11-year-old could somehow summon the strength to escape his cruel captivity and later seemingly rise above it, is a testament to the indomitability of the human spirit."