Students at Iowa's Cono Christian school claim they were smacked with large paddles with word 'love' on them, forced to run 'suicide' sprints until they vomited and locked in the basement for a WEEK

A Christian school for 'troubled' teens increased their trauma with a brutal regime of beatings, spying and imprisonment, former students have claimed.

Cono Christian School in rural Iowa is accused of forcing students on 'suicide runs' until they vomited, shut them up in a basement for weeks at a time and battered them with a wooden paddle emblazoned with the word 'love'.

The school received a warning from Iowa's Department of Human Services in the 1980s but was allowed to continue with its regime of capital punishment long after it was outlawed in the state's public schools.

Now it is facing a lawsuit from ex-pupils who say the school was ruled by fear.

'I told my parents about the basement, but nobody believed me,' Cecelia Angeli, now 32, told the Des Moines Register.

'I spent a lot of time there, but I never did anything that warranted being put in jail at a school.'

Former principal Andrew Belz said that visitors to the school noticed a 'certain peace' as he extolled its virtues in a 2009 promotional video 

But former students claim they were forced on 'suicide runs' until they vomited, shut up in a basement for weeks at a time and battered with a wooden paddle branded with the word 'love'

The school two miles north of Walker was founded at the start of the 1950s as a mission of Bible Presbyterian Church of Cono Center, largely for the children of missionaries.

But it expanded its intake in the decades that followed and marketed itself towards parents whose children were disruptive at home.

Angeli, whose step-father was a pastor, said she was confined to its basement between 15 and 20 times after being enrolled at 14 by her adoptive parents.

'We lived in fear of consequences,' she said.

'We were allowed one 15-minute call a week that was monitored. If we said anything they didn't like, they would just hang up the call.

'My doctor says I have borderline personality disorder and chronic PTSD from the trauma.

'I have zero relationship with my parents now. I felt abandoned when they sent me there and began drinking heavily and got in trouble after I left.'

Natalee Kooker was enrolled at 13 and claims she was punished after her parents removed her for a weekend without authorization.

'When my parents left campus that Monday they brought me into headmaster's office and said 'You're now on a performance plan. You have to run laps every day.

'When I said no, they made me rake gravel in the cold without a coat.'

Natalee Kooker said 'A lot of us left with more issues than we came with'

Cecelia Angeli, then Celelia Downs appeared in the promotional video with Belz 

She says no-one believed her reports about the basement at the time: I never did anything that warranted being put in jail at a school'

She endured her first experience of the basement after staff chased her down in a white minivan when she ran away.

'You would go down these wooden stairs. There was a concrete floor and big carpet on the ground, a pillow, a blanket and a bed,' she said.

'I remember a Bible on the floor. That was it.'

'I'm not sure they know the damage they did to some people. A lot of us left with more issues than we came with.'

Former principal Andrew Belz extolled the school's virtues when he appeared on a promotional video in 2009.

'I've been told repeatedly that when a guest steps on campus he or she experiences a certain peace - a certain 'shalom',' he said.

'We are not after robots we are after kids and families with changed hearts.'

But Rachel Davis, 32, from Fort Campbell, Kentucky, said hearts changed for the worse under the abusive regime, and she never received the counselling her family were promised.

'I was more in the basement than I was living in my dorm room,' she said.

'Right before I got expelled, I was there for 2½ to three weeks.'

The school washed its hands off her, she claims and recommended a tough-love residential program in the Dominican Republic where she spent four years.

'My whole childhood got yanked from me,' she said.

Belz told the Register that the school emphasized structure and relationships, not punishment.

'But everybody had consequences, and we need them in life,' he added.

And he insisted that the basement was rarely locked.

'You had your books, you could sneak out if you wanted to, all food was delivered directly to you, you were never starved or put on special rations,' he added.

'It would be silly to say every disciplinary situation was handled perfectly.

'But the broad outline was that the staffers loved the children and wanted to help kids get to adulthood and turn out great. And a lot of them did.'

Des Moines attorney Angela Campbell said she had been contacted by former pupils and she expected more to come forward.

'I am very troubled by the conduct that's been attributed to the former operators and staff at Cono Christian School,' she added.

'This level of cruelty in a school setting is unconscionable.

Belz who was headmaster from 1999 to 2008 denies child abuse but admits things would be done differently today:  'I wouldn't put detention rooms in the basement'

'I am hopeful that shedding light on this misconduct, and calling it out for what it is ― child abuse ― will help those children who suffered trauma while at Cono feel as though their voices can and will be heard.'

The school was taken over by new owners in 2018 and Belz admits that standards have changed.

'If I were building a school now, I wouldn't put detention rooms in the basement,' he said.

'It does sound unusual in our day.'