5 members of a family were jailed after they chained a special needs boy naked and placed him inside a dog house.

58-year-old Vickie Seale Higginbotham and her daughter 32-year-old Danielle Martin were jailed for 20 years after pleading guilty to aggravated child abuse of the special needs 13-year-old boy.

The 13-year-old boy, who is the son of 32-year-old Danielle Martin, was reportedly treated like a dog by his mother.

Higginbotham, the grandmother of the 13-year-old boy, was the ringleader that abused her grandson.

Josh Cochrane, a prosecutor, said the stepfather and 2 uncles of the 13-year-old boy were also jailed for abusing the child.

The abuse came to light 2 years ago after the police received an anonymous tip about a child being bound by chains and padlocks.

The incident happened inside a house in Autaugo County in Alabama, USA.

Upon checking out the house, the police found the 13-year-old boy, who was 11 at that time, naked.

WSFA, a news agency based in Alabama, said the boy was naked and his ankles were chained to the stairs of a split-level of hours.

When the police asked Martin, the mother of the boy, why the boy was chained up, she said its because the family doesn’t believe in “butt whoopings”.

The police said there were 2 other children found at the property.

The 2 kids told the police that when the 13-year-old special needs boy got in trouble, the adults would chain him up.

The kids also said that the adults in the household were extremely mean to the 13-year-old.

Initially, the 3 adults that were inside the house denied being involved in the beating and abusing of the boy, but Higginbotham later admitted that they chained up the boy.

She told the police that she did not know how to punish him.

According to the siblings of the boy, who were malnourished when the police came, the special needs boy was forced to sleep in a dog kennel and his feet were chained up because they did not fit inside the kneel.

Steven Geon, an investigator of the case, said the boy was extremely excited when the police arrived and when the chains were removed.