The United Kingdom is dismayed by the case of a mother who kept her newborn daughter locked in a drawer for three years, without ever seeing the light of the sun or observing a human face. Now, the woman has been sentenced to seven years in prison for child abuse.
The little girl was found in February 2023 by a friend of the mother. He went to go up the stairs of the house to access the bathroom and heard a noise that sounded like a baby. He found the minor severely malnourished and unable to walk or talk. He discovered the little girl, who had a cleft palate, matted hair and was suffering from dehydration, and called the police.
The mother was indifferent to the situation
In a statement read in court by the social worker who was the first to arrive at the scene, and to which ‘The Guardian’ has had access, it was said: “I was stunned by what I saw and was very surprised to see a baby looking at me sitting on a couch drawer. It stared at me and swayed back and forth.».
“I looked at her mother and asked, ‘Is this where you have her?’ The mother replied matter-of-factly: ‘Yes, in the drawer.’ “I was surprised that the mother showed no emotion and seemed indifferent to the situation.” «I asked him if anyone else had seen the girl. The mother replied: ‘No.’ It was an overwhelming horror to think that I was probably the only face the girl had seen other than her mother’s.».
abusive relationship
The girl had been born in the bathtub of the Cheshire house in March 2020but it had been kept secret and had never been recorded. The mother, whose name cannot be revealed for legal reasons, told police she had been in an abusive relationship with the baby’s father and did not want to tell him she was pregnant.
She then decided to hide the baby in a drawer, and returned from time to time to change his diaper or feed him milk through a syringe. As time passed, the situation became everyday and the mother went to work or took her other children to school, leaving the girl alone in the drawer for hours and hours, even leaving it all night on Christmas Eve. When medical experts examined the girl, she was unable to crawl, walk, speak or make any communicative sounds.
He also had little muscle mass, flaccid limbs, and swollen feet in an abnormal position. His development was so delayed due to extreme neglect that it was equivalent to a 10-month-old baby, according to the Crown Prosecution Service (CPS), the main public body responsible for carrying out criminal prosecutions in England and Wales.
“This girl has never had a gift”
A caregiver who now cares for the girl told the court that I had to teach him to smile and that “he didn’t know what food was.” Meanwhile, lead prosecutor Rachel Worthington, of Mersey-Cheshire Prosecution, said: “This girl has never had a birthday present, a Christmas present or anything to recognize her these days. “He has not had interaction with any of his brothers.”
«I didn’t know daylight or fresh air and she did not answer to her own name when she was first found. He added that the mother’s motivation was unclear but that justice had been done.
The judge in the case, Chester Recorder Steven Everett, said the mother’s behavior “totally defies motherhood. “It deprived that child of all love, attention or interaction with others, of a proper diet and of much-needed medical care for a cleft palate.”
«That little orphan was locked alone in a room. What you did was incredibly wicked. Your actions were catastrophic. Now he is coming back to life after what was possibly a living death,” he said.
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