A woman who kept her baby daughter in a drawer under her bed until the child was almost three years old, has been jailed for seven-and-a-half years.
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When social workers found the toddler, she had matted hair, deformities, and rashes and, her foster carer said, “did not know her own name”.
Chester Crown Court heard the mother had hidden the baby in the drawer of her divan bed so the child’s siblings and her boyfriend, who often stayed at her house, would not find out about her.
A social worker said in a statement that when she saw the child sitting in the drawer and asked the mother if that was where she kept her daughter, the woman “replied matter of factly ‘yes, in the drawer’.”
She was “shocked”, she said, that the mother, who cannot be named to protect the identity of her children, showed no emotion and “appeared blase about the situation.”
Sentencing the woman, who admitted child cruelty, Honorary Recorder of Chester Judge Steven Everett said her behaviour “defies belief”.
Her child had been “starved” of “any love, any proper affection, any proper attention, any interaction with others, a proper diet, much-needed medical attention”.
Judge Everett said the experience was “catastrophic” for the child – “physically, psychologically and socially”, saying she had endured “almost a living death”.
The woman did not get any medical help for the child’s cleft palate, failed to give her enough food and water, and fed her milky Weetabix through a syringe.
Sion ap Mihangel, prosecuting, said the child had a developmental age of nought to 10 months when she was first taken into hospital and was significantly malnourished and dehydrated.
The infant was left alone while her mother took her other children to school, went to work and when she stayed with relatives over Christmas, Mr ap Mihangel said.
When the mother’s boyfriend began to stay at the property overnight the child was moved into another room and left there alone, the court was told.
Mr Everett said her “terrible” secret was only discovered, “by sheer chance” when her partner returned to the house one morning to use the toilet after the mother had left and discovered the child.
He told family members and later that day social services came and found the child in the drawer of the bed.
The child’s foster carer said in a statement that the girl “did not know her own name when we called her”.
In interview, the woman told police she had not known she was pregnant and was “really scared” when she gave birth.
The woman pleaded guilty in October to four counts of child cruelty, reflecting her failure to seek basic medical care for the child, abandonment, malnourishment and general neglect.
