Pair claiming £84k benefits left children living in filth with 35 dogs
Eight boys and girls, one covered in faeces, found in couple’s house among dead animal and rotting food
A COUPLE who were paid £7,000 a month in benefits and had eight children living in a filthy house crammed with 35 dogs have been jailed for six years.
Police discovered the children at the home of Christopher Bennett, 36, and Gemma Brogan, 41, a former dance teacher, after they were called to a domestic incident at an address in Eastbourne, East Sussex, in June last year.
Officers who arrived at the scene spoke to Bennett through an open bathroom window, before entering the property to find a seven-year-old covered in animal faeces sitting near a dead dog, Lewes Crown Court heard.
The court was shown police bodycam footage of officers using wooden boards to prevent the 35 live dogs escaping from the house as they rescued the seven-year-old.
All eight children, who are aged between four and 18, were taken into emergency protection.
In what was described as a “particularly dreadful example of child neglect”, the youngest children were pale and underweight, could not sit at a table and were unable to use a knife and fork.
Children’s services had to teach one child what shampoo and conditioner were and how to wash herself, while matted clumps of hair had been cut off one child who required repeated baths before she was clean.
One child was unsteady on her feet and had poor social skills while another could not read or write. All the children had rotten teeth. One child needed a general anaesthetic so a dentist could remove 13 teeth.
Judge Stephen Mooney said the couple, who were jailed for six years each, had “frittered away £7,000 a month which should have been spent on the children”.
The couple, who were recorded spending £1,600 a month in mortgage repayments, would have received £84,000 a year in benefits.
Judge Mooney added: “It is impossible for any person to comprehend the enormity of your failings.” He said the children had been victims of prolonged, serious neglect.
“Whatever was going on in their relationship, they should have been looking after those children,” he said. “How do you have 35 dogs, £7,000 in benefits, how is this allowed to happen?”
Amy Packham for the Crown told the court that the couple had entered guilty pleas to seven counts of neglect on seven children in their care between September 2019 and June 2021.
“This was willful neglect,” Ms Packham said. “This was clearly a toxic relationship and there were volatile incidents between the two of them. It would appear it was a situation which was reciprocated both ways.”
It is one of a series of cases of severe neglect or child cruelty during lockdown. Six-year-old Arthur Labinjohughes died after months of neglect at the hands of father Thomas Hughes and stepmother Emma Tustin, while 16-month-old Star Hobson was murdered by her mother’s girlfriend. In both cases, concerns were raised that signs of abuse may have been missed because families were more isolated during lockdown.
Ms Packham said the child who had not known how to wash herself also did not know how to read or write.
“She couldn’t read or write, didn’t know days of the week or months of the year. They discouraged her from going to school saying it would make her anxious and she would find it too hard,” she said, adding: “She looked after the younger ones.”
Bennett and Brogan pleaded guilty to seven counts of child neglect.
The judge said the pair would have been jailed for eight years after a trial and reduced their sentence by 25 per cent for early guilty pleas.
Rebecca Upton, defending Bennett, described him as an isolated man with a low IQ, whose mental health deteriorated in lockdown.
Sarah Thorne, representing Brogan, said the former dance teacher was a victim of circumstance. The court heard that the number of dogs was a “situation that escalated” as they had interbred and had puppies during lockdown.
Det Con Fiona Ashcroft, of the East Sussex safeguarding investigations unit, said: “Upon entering the address, our officers were shocked about the state of the property and had major concerns for the welfare of all the children.
“The stench, as you entered the hallway, hit officers hard they were not able to breathe normally due to the stench.
“The state of the whole house was shocking and repugnant – it was cluttered and was strewn with discarded clothing, litter, rotting food and animal faeces.”
Bennett and Brogan also admitted animal cruelty after being prosecuted by the RSPCA during separate cases in February and August this year.
In that trial, Brogan was given an 18-week prison sentence, suspended for two years, a five-year ban for all animals, 30 rehabilitation activity days and 100 hours of community service work. Bennett was sentenced to 18 weeks’ imprisonment and disqualified indefinitely from keeping all animals.