A mother has just been sentenced in the United Kingdom to more than seven years in prison, reports the “Daily Mail”. His crime? Hiding her child in a drawer for three years, without the knowledge of her partner and her other children.
The girl, who had never seen daylight or breathed fresh air, was discovered shortly before her third birthday by the woman’s partner, who had come home to use the toilet after the woman had left. mother and who “heard crying”.
The child, fed Weetabix with milk using a syringe, our colleagues from the “Daily Mail” point out, was so seriously malnourished that she had the appearance of a seven-month-old baby.
She had been left without food for long periods of time and did not respond to her own name. Her hair was matted, she suffered from deformities, rashes, a cleft palate and other medical problems for which her mother had not sought treatment.
“You deprived this little girl of all love”
The mother admitted cruelty to the child and was sentenced by Judge Steven Everett, who said: “You deprived this little girl of any love, any proper affection, any proper attention, any interaction with others, an appropriate diet and necessary medical care. By pure chance, your terrible secret has been discovered.”
The offenses took place from early 2020 to 2023. The child was kept in a bedroom drawer, without being taken out, socialized or interacting with anyone.
The mother, whose identity cannot be revealed to protect that of her children, hid the baby’s presence by hiding it in the drawer of her sofa bed, without the knowledge of her partner who often stayed at her home.
“Really scared”
When questioned, the woman told police she didn’t know she was pregnant and had been “really scared” when she gave birth. She claimed the baby was not kept in the drawer under the bed all the time and the drawer was never closed, but told officers the child “wasn’t part of the family.”
During the trial, a “set of exceptional circumstances” was cited, including the woman’s mental health, a volatile relationship with the child’s father and confinement due to Covid. Prosecutor Rachel Worthington stressed that the girl never received a birthday or Christmas present and had no interaction with her siblings.
The mother pleaded guilty in October to four counts of child cruelty, reflecting her failure to provide basic medical care, abandonment, malnutrition and general neglect.
The “baby in the trunk” in France
This affair is reminiscent of that of the “baby in the trunk”, which took place in France.
Rosa-Maria Da Cruz gave birth to a little girl on November 24, 2011 in Brive-la-Gaillarde. But she hid it in a room in the basement of her house, as well as in the trunk of her car, taking very little care of it, even though she normally took care of her three other children. Her husband then didn’t notice anything.
Little Séréna was discovered accidentally by a mechanic, who had to resolve “a problem with the warnings” on the mother’s car, we learned from various media reporting on the case. He opened the trunk and found the little girl in a deplorable state. She is now seriously handicapped: her ordeal lasted 23 months since she was born.
Rosa-Maria Da Cruz received a five-year prison sentence in October 2019.
Denial of pregnancy, a not so rare phenomenon
Although it fortunately does not often lead to such terrible extremes, denial of pregnancy is nevertheless relatively common.
A CHUV study in collaboration with the University of Lausanne puts forward a figure of 2 cases per 1000 deliveries. Among our French neighbors, this phenomenon concerns between 1500 and 3000 women each year.
There is no exact definition of denial of pregnancy, but the CHUV study expresses it as follows: it is “the non-recognition of a pregnancy beyond the first trimester and which can be extend until childbirth and cover the latter.
We then speak of partial denial of pregnancy “for an unknown pregnancy beyond the first trimester and lasting several months, but which is discovered before delivery”, and of total denial of pregnancy for “a pregnancy which remains unknown until at childbirth.
In the “baby in the trunk” case, the prosecution spoke of a “denial of pregnancy taken to the extreme”.
This article was written using artificial intelligence (AI). All content taken from the AI is verified by the editorial staff.
