A mother from Cheshire, Britain was sentenced to seven years and six months in prison for keeping and hiding her baby in a drawer under her bed for her first three years of life. This case, described as "extreme neglect" by Senior Crown Prosecutor of CPS Rachel Worthington, had only come to light one year ago.
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In February 2023, the mother's partner discovered the young, sick girl in her Cheshire home. While normally not allowed upstairs alone, the partner had gone back into the house to use the bathroom after the mother left her keys in the door.
A Case of "Extreme Neglect"
He then heard the sounds of a baby crying, leading him to find an extremely malnourished child with a cleft palate and matted hair. She was born in 2020 inside her mother's bathtub, and due to the mother not knowing of her pregnancy and the father of the baby being abusive, the woman was terrified.
This led to the mother viewing the baby as "not part of the family", as she told officers, and keeping her a secret from her other children and her current partner. The mother soon decided to keep the baby hidden in a drawer below her bed.
She would infrequently open up the drawer. Either to feed her cereal soaked in milk through a syringe or to change her soiled diaper, as prosecutors explained.
When the authorities discovered the young child, she was 35 months old. Unfortunately, she had the delayed development of a 10-month-old. She was unable to crawl or walk due to weak muscle mass and swollen feet.
Meanwhile, she couldn't communicate or speak in any way when the authorities initially found her. The baby also suffered from dehydration, a bad diaper rash, and a swollen abdomen.
"It became an overwhelming horror," said the social worker to the court, "that I was probably the only other face [the child] had seen apart from her mother's." For the privacy of the young girl, the authorities did not identify who the mother was.
After the horrified partner discovered the baby, he called the defendant's mother, which led her to contact the authorities. He had only just found her by fluke. The mother would typically move the child to a separate room whenever the partner stayed over.
What Happens Now?
In October, the mother confessed to four charges of child cruelty and the court officially sentenced her on Tuesday. According to the same social worker, the mother "did not show any emotion and appeared blasé" with the situation.
This was "an intelligent little girl who is now perhaps slowly coming to life," said Judge Steven Everett, "from what was almost a living death in that room." He also claimed that he hasn't remembered "a case as bad as this in my 46 years."
The children of the defendant are now not under her care. Not only that, but the baby underwent two successful surgeries to fix her cleft palate and lip. She is now in foster care, and she will require more surgeries.
