NEGLECT HORROR
MUM JAILED FOR TWO YEARS AFTER CHILDREN FOUND LIVING IN ABSOLUTE SQUALOR
A MOTHER has been jailed after she kept her children in a filthy home so dirty it was “literally not fit for animals to live in”.
The youngsters, a boy and girl of primary school age, were discovered in the house after a neighbour called the RSPCA because she was concerned the premises were unfit for the woman’s cats, a court heard. When police and social services attended they discovered excrement smeared on the walls, a blocked toilet, cat fleas, bowls filled with maggots, and rubbish strewn everywhere.
There had been no heating or hot water for nine months and the only food in the building was a tin of spaghetti.
It is thought the children, from Barry, had been kept in squalor for more than two years.
“The social worker who entered the house described the smell as ‘choking,’” Ieuan Bennett, prosecuting at Cardiff Crown Court, said.
“She noticed cat fleas, rodent droppings, faeces on the carpet and walls.
“There were no bedclothes on the bed, broken toys everywhere. The toilets were blocked, there was no heating or hot water.”
There had been none since December 2016. The case came to light in August 2017.
Mr Bennett said: “Asked about feeding the children, she said she fed them noodles. A search revealed one tin of spaghetti and no other edible food at all.”
The children were wearing dirty clothes.
“One social worker said she received flea bites when walking around the house to her legs and neck,” Mr Bennett added.
Upon examination a doctor reported the children were in “a relatively sound physical state”.
A total 165 bags of rubbish were removed from the house.
“It was twice fumigated to improve its condition,” Mr Bennett said.
The children had been attending school but not the required amount.
“The teachers reported the children turning up not wearing pants or socks, wearing dirty clothing, looking dishevelled, and smelling in school,” Mr Bennett said.
When a police officer attended the property to arrest the woman, there was so much litter inside they could not open the door.
The court heard the mother had attempted suicide.
Kevin Seal, defending, said no-one felt “more ashamed or embarrassed” than his client.
“She knows she seriously let down her children and, as a mother, there can be nothing worse. She is the first to acknowledge that. She entered guilty pleas at the first opportunity and has never sought to blame anyone else.”
Mr Seal said his client had suffered depression, was isolated, and had been abused as a child.
The relationship with the children’s father had broken down.
“Rather than reaching out for help, she was embarrassed and as the situation grew worse the embarrassment grew worse,” Mr Seal said.
He told the court the woman, who admitted two counts of child cruelty, would be “eternally sorry” and knew she must “make changes” but hoped “at some stage” to be reunited with her children.
Sentencing the woman, who cannot be identified for legal reasons, Judge Thomas Crowther QC told her the case was so serious it demanded a jail sentence.
“A member of the public had been concerned the house was literally not fit for animals to live in,” Judge Crowther said.
He referred to the lavatory as “blocked and black”.
“There are photos that describe the place better than I could,” he said. “It’s a disgrace.” He described the defendant as “not behaving in any way appropriately as a parent”.
“You had completely forgotten your responsibilities,” he said.
He took into account things were difficult for her as a single mother, but noted many found themselves in those “dire straits”.
“One can’t look at those photos without thinking of those two and a half years when the rooms should have been light and filled with laughter instead of the squalid scene we see in the photos,” Judge Crowther said.
The woman wept as she was taken down.