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Warning: this story contains disturbing details.

Two women who pleaded guilty in a high-profile Edmonton child abuse case were sentenced to eight years in prison Thursday in a decision delivered by video due to the COVID-19 pandemic.

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The women, aged 25 and 26, admitted to abusing two young girls found sealed in a filthy basement in December 2017. The older of the two women is the children’s mother.

In what might be a first for Alberta courts, the Court of Queen’s Bench video-streamed Justice Gaylene Kendell’s sentencing decision so members of the press could adhere to the province’s social distancing guidelines.

The two girls — aged six and three at the time — were discovered in a basement on Dec. 15, 2017, after a baby sitter hired to watch them called the police. A heavy dresser had been placed in front of the basement door to prevent the girls from going upstairs.

The mother and her friend each pleaded guilty last September to two counts of aggravated assault and one count of forcible confinement. They admitted to sealing the girls in the basement — which was hot, smelled of urine and lacked food and drinking water — and to disciplining the children with belts, leaving permanent scars.