Thirteen care home staff, managers and directors have been convicted over the abuse of disabled residents who were repeatedly imprisoned inside rooms to punish them.

Staff at all levels of the company were found to have played a part in the "organised and systemic abuse" of disabled adults under their care at the Atlas-branded Veilstone and Gatooma care homes in Devon.

A series of trials heard that residents have been trapped alone in empty rooms without furniture or toilets for hours on end in order to force them to comply with staff.

It is thought to mark the first time that directors have been prosecuted alongside staff for abuse or mistreatment of care home residents.

Among those convicted were Atlas Project Team co-director Jolyon Marshall, 42, his wife Rachel, 32, and several managers.

Paul Hewitt, 71, the founder of Atlas, was convicted of a health and safety offence.

The trials took place last year, but can only now be reported after a court order was lifted following the end of the final hearing involving the homes.

The trials heard that residents had been imprisoned on more than 1,000 occasions in 2010 and 2011 under a culture in which staff tried to train disabled people's behaviour like animals.

The rooms were known as either the "garden room" or the "quiet room".

"The prosecution say that each of them was effectively imprisoned in that room against their will," said Andrew Langdon QC.

"It was not a one-off, but organised and systemic abuse of people with learning disabilities - vulnerable members of society who were residents in homes that were meant to care for them."

Passing sentence, Judge William Hart said: "Those two rooms cast a dark shadow over people's lives."

The company running the homes was paid as much as £4,000 a week per resident.

Gatooma care home in Holsworthy had an income of nearly £700,000 a year while Veilstone, in Bideford, produced annual revenue of £1.2 million

Atlas Project Team as a whole had a turnover of £6.5 million in 2011.

The abuse was caught after a former resident called the Care Quality Commission watchdog in July 2011 and the police became involved.

The CQC carried out unannounced inspections the following October and the two homes were later closed.

Atlas has since gone into administration.

Huw Rogers, from the Crown Prosecution Service, said: "The directors and managers at the Atlas care homes created a culture of abuse - unlawfully detaining residents in very poor conditions for long periods of time.

"This case has been ground-breaking in that the directors and managers of the homes and not just the staff that implemented their policies have been held to account."