The little girl was found alive but with deformities, rashes, and matted hair, with the unnamed mother sentenced to seven-and-a-half years.
A woman who kept her baby daughter in a drawer under her bed until she was discovered weeks before her third birthday was jailed for seven-and-a-half years on Tuesday.
The little girl, discovered at the family home in Cheshire, was found with matted hair, deformities, and rashes and with a developmental age between that of a newborn baby and a 10-month-old when she was first taken into hospital.
Chester Crown Court was told the mother, who cannot be named to protect the identity of her children, concealed the baby’s presence from her siblings by hiding her in the drawer of her divan bed and kept her secret from her partner, who often stayed at the house.
She was said to have looked after her other children well.
The court heard the woman did not seek medical help for the child’s cleft palate and did not give her adequate food and water, instead feeding her milky Weetabix through a syringe. The little girl was seriously malnourished and dehydrated when she was discovered.
Never Taken Outside
Sion ap Mihangel, prosecuting, said, “She was kept…
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