JEFFERSON CITY (AP) – Missouri’s high court has upheld the child abuse convictions of a Springfield man who confined his son to a church bathroom and limited his food.

In a unanimous ruling Tuesday, the Supreme Court rejected assertions by Peter Hansen that there wasn’t enough evidence to prove that he knowingly inflicted cruel and unusual punishment on his teenage son.

The court had heard arguments in the case on Oct. 1.

Hansen had been living with his wife, son and daughter at a Seventh-day Adventist church after being evicted from their Springfield home in 2009. Child-abuse investigators responding to a hotline call found the boy being kept in a small, cold, dark bathroom as punishment.