It’s a barely believable story revealed by the “Daily Mail”: a mother hid a small child for three years in a drawer, under her sofa. She did not want her partner and children to know about this birth.
This little girl had “never known daylight or fresh air” until she was found crying on a bed by a visitor, Chester Crown Court in the United Kingdom was told.
The 3-year-old girl was so severely malnourished that she looked like a 7-month-old infant, police say. Rachel Worthington, of the Crown Prosecution Service, told the court the little girl was sometimes left alone, without food, for long periods of time.
She also explained that, at the time of his discovery, the child did not respond to his own first name.
The victim was found in poor health, with matted hair, rashes all over and other serious medical problems for which her mother had not sought medical attention, the court heard.
The child’s mother is on trial for cruelty to a child.
The judge who decided, in order to protect the victim, not to reveal the mother’s name said: “I don’t remember a case as serious as this in 46 years.”
The child was thus hidden between the beginning of 2020 and 2023. It was that year that a visitor discovered her, after hearing her crying.
As a result of her mother’s neglect and cruelty, the girl now suffers serious developmental problems and has been placed in foster care, the court was told.
The mother told police she was “unknowingly” pregnant and was “really scared” when she gave birth to the child, later telling police that “the baby wasn’t part of the family.
She claimed that the little girl was not kept under the sofa at all times and that the drawer was never closed.
