A British mother has been sentenced to more than seven years and six months in prison for keeping her baby daughter hidden in a drawer under her bed for the first three years of her life.
The mother was accused of “extreme neglect” for preventing her sick baby from experiencing “daylight and fresh air” for three years, prosecutors say.
It was the mother’s partner who discovered the young girl in February 2023, when he heard crying inside her house in Cheshire, England, according to court documents published on the Crown website. Prosecution Service.
He followed the noise coming from the bedroom and found the little girl in the drawer. He then called the authorities.
Authorities discovered the girl was malnourished, unable to crawl, walk, speak or communicate.
For reasons still unknown, the mother left her baby in a drawer of her box spring bed some time after his birth, only opening the drawer very rarely to give him cereals soaked in milk using a syringe. and to change diapers.
Crown Prosecution Service
The mother even kept the baby a secret from her other children and friends, according to court documents.
“Extreme negligence”
She continued to take her other children to school while she went to work, leaving the little girl in the drawer for hours.
“This child has never had a birthday present, Christmas present or anything related to her these days. She had no interaction with any of her brothers and sisters,” said the Crown prosecutor.
The woman “deprived this little girl of all love, affection, attention, interaction with others, proper diet and essential medical care,” Judge Steven Everett told the court .
This young girl will have to “slowly come back to life, after living in an almost dead room,” he continued.
“Overwhelming horror”
When a social worker asked the mother if she kept her child in the drawer, she replied “yes”, showing “no emotion”.
“I asked if anyone else had ever seen [le bébé]? The mother said no,” the social worker said.
“It was an overwhelming horror to know that I was probably the only other face that [le bébé] had seen outside of her mother’s,” she concluded.
The mother in question shared that she had an abusive relationship with the girl’s father and did not want to tell him that she was pregnant.
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