A mother who kept her baby daughter in a drawer under her bed for almost three years has been jailed for seven and a half years in Britain. <\/p>\n
The woman, who cannot be named for legal reasons, was jailed at Chester Crown Court in northwest England after the judge said the child \u2013 who was discovered weeks before her third birthday \u2013 had endured a \u201cliving death\u201d as a result of her mother\u2019s \u201cterrible secret.\u201d <\/p>\n
The unnamed toddler was found with matted hair, rashes and some deformities at the family home in Cheshire, according to the PA Media news agency, which reported on the case. <\/p>\n
The court was told that the woman, who admitted four counts of child cruelty last month, hid the infant from her partner, who regularly stayed at the family home, as well as her other children. <\/p>\n
\u201cTo my mind, what you did totally defies belief,\u201d PA reported Judge Steven Everett as saying. <\/p>\n
\u201cYou starved that little girl of any love, any proper affection, any proper attention, any interaction with others, a proper diet, much-needed medical attention.\u201d <\/p>\n
He added: \u201cYou attempted to control this situation as carefully as you could but by sheer chance your terrible secret was discovered. <\/p>\n
\u201cThe consequences for (the child) were nothing short of catastrophic \u2013 physically, psychologically and socially.\u201d <\/p>\n
He went on to tell the court that the child, now in foster care, is an \u201cintelligent little girl who is now perhaps slowly coming to life from what was almost a living death in that room.\u201d <\/p>\n
Prosecutor Si\u00f4n ap Mihangel said that when the child was taken to hospital she was found to be significantly malnourished and dehydrated. The court heard that she had only been fed milky cereal through a syringe. <\/p>\n
She also had a cleft palate, which had been left untreated. <\/p>\n
\u201cShe was kept in a drawer in the bedroom, not taken outside, not socialised, no interaction with anybody else,\u201d Ap Mihangel said, explaining that she had a developmental age of between 0 and 10 months. <\/p>\n
He went on to tell the court that the little girl was left alone when her mother went to work, took the other children to school and even when she went to stay with relatives over Christmas. <\/p>\n
When the woman\u2019s partner began to stay over, she moved the child to another room, where she was left on her own, the court heard. <\/p>\n
But he eventually came across the child when he went back into the house one day to use the bathroom and heard a noise coming from one of the bedrooms. He alerted family members and later that day social services attended the property, where they found the girl in a drawer. <\/p>\n
When confronted, the mother \u201cdid not show any emotion and appeared blas\u00e9,\u201d the social worker told the court in a statement. <\/p>\n
\u201cIt became an overwhelming horror that I was probably the only other face (the child) had seen apart from her mother\u2019s,\u201d the social worker added. <\/p>\n
During an interview with police, the woman said had not known she had been pregnant and was \u201creally scared\u201d giving birth. She said the drawer was never closed and that the baby did not remain it at all times, but that she was \u201cnot part of the family.\u201d <\/p>\n
In a statement read out to the court, the child\u2019s foster carer said: \u201cIt became very apparent she did not know her own name when we called her.\u201d <\/p>\n
Defense attorney Matthew Dunford said the woman\u2019s mental health, a volatile relationship with the child\u2019s abusive father and the Covid lockdown had combined to create an \u201cexceptional set of circumstances.\u201d <\/p>\n
He went on to say that the other children, who were well looked after, no longer live with their mother. <\/p>\n<\/p>\n
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