Parents get 2yrs for baby suffocation

THE parents of a baby that suffocated while lying between them on a single mattress have been jailed for two years.

The man and woman had been drinking before going to sleep at a “squalid” Cumbrian home.

They woke to find the tot lifeless and it was declared dead in hospital.

A postmortem showed the child died of overlaying – a kind of asphyxiation.

The house was said to be “squalid in the extreme” with no working toilet. A bin bag was found with human waste inside.

At Carlisle crown court, both parents admitted child cruelty.

Judge Peter Hughes QC told them: “It was a serious dereliction of the duty that you had to protect and safeguard your baby.”