A woman who had adopted three children but wanted a fourth hatched a "wicked" scheme, forcing her 14-year-old daughter to get pregnant with donor sperm, a British judge has ruled.

The teenager apparently miscarried her first pregnancy and inseminated herself six more times before she finally had a baby boy at age 17, the ruling said.

After hospital midwives became suspicious, the plot was uncovered, and the mother -- described as an American divorcee living in Britain -- is serving a five-year term for child cruelty.

The case dates to 2011 but was sealed and details were only released after the media challenged restrictions. The family members' names were withheld by court order.

High Court Judge Peter Jackson's ruling said the woman at the center of the case -- who had undergone sterilization for health reasons, according to the Guardian newspaper -- was blocked from adopting a fourth child.

She purchased sperm over the Internet from a Denmark-based company, Cryos International, and convinced her oldest daughter -- then just 14 years old -- to inseminate herself with syringes, the judge wrote.

The teen told authorities that she believed if she did it her mother would love her more.

“My mum is a very determined person and she does her best not to let anything get in her way if she wants it,” the girl was quoted as saying.

The mother was hoping for a girl and had the teen use concoctions of vinegar and lemon juice and adhere to a special diet in the hopes of influencing the gender of the child.

The court said it was likely the girl got pregnant quickly and then suffered a miscarriage. After she gave birth in July 2011, hospital staff became alarmed when the baby's grandmother tried to stop her daughter from breastfeeding the newborn.

"We don't want any of that attachment thing," she reportedly said.

The woman tried to leave the ward with the baby, and child protection was summoned. The teen and her siblings were put into foster care.

In his ruling, Jackson said he was writing with "an abiding sense of disbelief that a parent could behave in such a wicked and selfish way towards a vulnerable child."

The Associated Press contributed to this report

LONDON -- The two most senior figures at BBC News “stepped aside” Monday, as the public broadcaster revealed that the corporation’s outgoing director general will get his full year’s salary of $715,000 despite resigning under pressure after 54 days in the post.

The chairman of the broadcaster's governing body described revelations about the BBC’s multiple missteps in reporting a historic child sex abuse scandal in Britain as a “ghastly mess” and said the BBC needed a “radical overhaul.”

Q&A: Crisis at the BBC

"The basis for the BBC's position in this country is the trust that people have in it," Chris Patten, a one-time senior figure in Cameron's Conservative Party and the last British governor of Hong Kong, told the BBC. "If the BBC loses that, it's over."

The widening scandal also had implications on the other side of the Atlantic: Mark Thompson, until recently the man in charge of the organization, takes over as CEO of The New York Times on Monday.

Thompson's successor as Director General, George Entwistle, resigned Saturday -- taking the blame for an editorial blunder in which flagship BBC program “Newsnight” aired false child sex abuse allegations against a former politician.

On Monday, Helen Boaden, the BBC’s director of news and current affairs, and her deputy Steve Mitchell, “stepped aside,” the BBC’s media correspondent Torin Douglas reported.

The BBC's press office said it could not yet confirm the report but the BBC said on its own news website that there would be an announcement later in the day.

The BBC faces police and other investigations into claims that hundreds of people, some as young as 12, were sexually abused over the course of decades by one of their top personalities, the late Jimmy Savile.

It is also facing awkward questions over how the same "Newsnight" program chose not to air a report last year that investigated complaints against Savile. 

Payout
The BBC's governing body confirmed that Entwistle would get a payout of $715,000. It said the settlement took into consideration that Entwistle would continue working on BBC business, including two inquiries in the child abuse scandal.

The U.K. government quickly signaled its displeasure at the payout, with minister Maria Miller saying: "This is a large amount of money, and tough to justify considering the circumstances of Mr. Entwistle's departure."

John Whittingdale, chairman of the House of Commons committee on culture, media and sport, said he was surprised by the settlement and has sought an explanation.

Sweeping child abuse scandal shakes BBC and other UK institutions

“My immediate reaction is that it cannot be justified but I will want to hear exactly why they think it is appropriate. ... I think almost everybody hearing this news will say 'how can somebody who has had to leave in these circumstances, as a result of a serious failure, nevertheless get a whole year's salary,'” Whittingdale said.

Opposition politician Harriet Harman said the payout “looked like a reward for failure,” according to a BBC report.

The BBC said Entistle's contract stipulated that he receive six months' salary, but that sum was doubled in order to ensure a speedy departure and transition.

Former minister David Mellor has criticized Entwistle as having the "leadership skills of Winnie the Pooh," according to The Telegraph.

Incoming New York Times chief in spotlight
Thompson, the new CEO of the New York Times, said he did not know about the nature of the investigation by "Newsnight" into Savile, and had no involvement in the decision to drop the report, which occurred while he was director general.

He later said he had a "chance meeting" with a journalist who mentioned the Newsnight investigation into Savile, but said he had not been told any of the details or the scale of the problem.

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Entwistle's departure and his acceptance of responsibility for editorial decisions as director general, adds pressure to any evaluation of Thompson's role at the BBC and whether he was ultimately accountable for the shelving of the Savile report.

Thompson did not immediately respond to a request for comment regarding Entwistle's resignation. Earlier, he declined to be interviewed about his plans for the New York Times, Reuters reported.

'Auntie'
The BBC, celebrating its 90th anniversary, is affectionately known in Britain as "Auntie," and respected around much of the world.

But with 22,000 staff working at eight national TV channels, 50 radio stations and an extensive Internet operation, critics say it is hampered by a complex and overly bureaucratic and hierarchical management structure.

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Funded by an annual license fee levied on all TV viewers, the BBC has also long been resented by its commercial rivals, who argue it has an unfair advantage and distorts the market.

Rupert Murdoch's Sun tabloid gleefully reported Entwistle's departure with the headline "Bye Bye Chump."

Murdoch, whose own News Corp. is at the center of a recent phone-hacking scandal, was watching from afar.

“BBC mess gives Cameron golden opportunity properly to reorganize great public broadcaster,” he wrote on Twitter on Sunday.

Reuters and The Associated Press contributed to this report.

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BEIJING – Parents across China this week were shocked when two separate stories of gross physical abuse against kindergarten-aged children made national headlines.

On Tuesday, police in the city of Taiyuan, the provincial capital of Shanxi, detained a teacher at the Sky Montessori kindergarten after parents complained about alleged physical abuse there.

Closed-circuit TV video from inside the classroom -- released to the media soon after the scandal broke -- confirmed what parents had already inferred from their children's bruises and stories: that their teacher, Li Zhuqing, was slapping, kicking, hitting and verbally abusing them.

A video from a local Shanxi provincial news program (report in Chinese; footage starts around 34 seconds in) shows Li repeatedly slapping and shoving around the children over a 10 minute period. Two girls are shown being repeatedly slapped in the face while a boy is seen being slapped and then shoved into another student.

The father of one of the girls said he reported the abuse to the police after his daughter came home with a bruised eye and cheek, and explained to the news program why his daughter was singled out.

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"The teacher [Li] did it because she couldn't answer 10 plus one correctly," said the father, surnamed Han. He noted that his daughter could do simple single-digit addition, but could not understand Li's explanation of how to solve higher sums.

According to Han, his daughter was slapped in the face around 70 times and kicked twice, while three other children in the class were reportedly hit 43, 10 and 27 times respectively.

"She is not a teacher. She should not be a teacher. To put it plainly, she is not a human being," said Han.

The story quickly went viral and drew hundreds of thousands of comments on China's Twitter-like service Weibo.

"How can the world have people like this? Her parents should be ashamed of having a daughter like that!" wrote one user. "Watching this video made me cry ... Children should never be treated like this," added another.

Li was detained under a 15-day "administrative detention," common when Chinese police are waiting to charge someone, Chinese state media reported. The Montessori school, which reportedly was unlicensed and therefore operating illegally, was also shut down indefinitely. Taiyuan city authorities pledged a month-long investigation of other municipal schools to ensure there were no other cases of abuse. 

Boy held up by ears
But there was more outrage to come: Another school abuse scandal broke the next day after a picture taken at the Blue Peacock kindergarten in Wenling, Zhejiang province, circulated online.

The photo showed a teacher holding up a child by his ears -- the boy obviously in pain and the teacher grinning widely.

The teacher, Yan Yanhong, 20, was detained and police opened an investigation. Authorities revealed that she had been working without a license and that the school had been applying to certify her while she worked.

News of the abuse quickly spread around the Web, where it garnered more than 4 million posts and became a trending topic on Weibo by Thursday.

"This person is seriously sick!" wrote a disgusted Weibo user. "My child starts school next year, how frightening!" said another.

Teng Linhua, Vice-director of the Wenling Education Bureau, told the China Daily newspaper that "all teachers at private and public schools must have qualifications before being hired."

Teng said only 40 percent of kindergarten teachers in Wenling were properly qualified.

NBC News' Le Li and Johanna Armstrong contributed to this report.