Mother was jailed for three years for hiding her child in a drawer

A mother who hid her new baby in a drawer of her bed for three years and fed her through a syringe has been jailed.

The woman, who cannot be identified for legal reasons, hid the birth of her daughter from her family and friends.

The baby was born in 2020 with a cleft palate and the mother, who said she gave birth in a bath at her home in Cheshire, initially fed her herself.

Then, for a reason the Crown Prosecution Service has never been able to determine, she decided to put the baby in a drawer of her sofa bed and leave her there.

She returned occasionally to feed her milky Weetabix through a syringe and change the child’s diapers.

As time passed, the mother went to work, took her other children to school, and left the child alone in the drawer for hours.

The baby’s growth and physical and mental development were seriously affected by the lack of care, attention and food and the constraints of living in a drawer.

The child was discovered in February 2023, when a partner of the mother heard a noise from what he thought was a baby. He had entered the house again to go to the toilet after the suspect had left her keys in the door. She usually didn’t let him go upstairs alone.

He followed the sound and discovered a child almost three years old with a cleft palate, dull hair and clearly malnourished.

He ran out of the house in shock and told his mother, who then called the suspect’s mother. Social workers and the police were called. Those first on the scene gave moving statements to the court about what they had found.

The social worker stated: “Since March 2023, I have often thought about (the baby) and this case.

“My first feelings and thoughts when we entered the mother’s bedroom were of disbelief. When we entered this room, the bed was high, possibly a double mattress, so I couldn’t see (the baby).

“Her mother walked along the edge of the bed and I followed. I was surprised by what I saw and was extremely shocked to see a baby looking up at me while sitting in a couch drawer.

“(The baby) was staring at me and rocking back and forth. I looked at her mother and asked, “Is this where you keep her?” The mother replied matter-of-factly, “Yes, in the drawer.”

“I was shocked that the mother showed no emotion and seemed blasé about the situation. I asked if anyone else had ever seen (the child)? Mom said no.

“It became an overwhelming horror that I was probably the only other face X had seen other than her mother’s.

“Having been a social worker since 2006, I have never experienced such an extreme case of blatant child neglect and cruelty. The mother showed no remorse or emotion which I found extremely difficult to understand.”

The mother later told police that she had been in an abusive relationship with the baby’s father and that she did not want to tell him she was pregnant.

When the baby was examined by medical experts, she was unable to crawl, walk, talk or make communicative sounds and made repetitive “self-soothing” movements, such as rocking.

She was also significantly malnourished, unkempt, dehydrated, had an untreated cleft lip and palate, a swollen abdomen, significant diaper rash, and poor muscle mass.

She also had flaccid limbs, swollen feet in an abnormal position and redness of the outer extremities. By the age of 35 months, her development had slowed significantly and was consistent with that of a 10-month-old child.

It was confirmed that the developmental delay was due to the extreme nature of the neglect.

Within two weeks of her admission to the hospital, the child was screaming, seeking comfort from adults and crying to express her needs. She continues to make progress and has had two surgeries to repair the cleft palate. However, she still needs further surgery.

The mother pleaded guilty to four charges of child abuse at a hearing at Chester Crown Court on October 9, 2024 and today (November 26, 2024) she was sentenced to a total of seven years and six months in prison.

Senior Attorney General Rachel Worthington from CPS Mersey-Cheshire said: “This child has been subjected to extreme neglect of her health, development and basic care needs since before her birth.

“She was left alone for a long time, slept in an inappropriate and too small space and did not receive adequate nutrition.

“When the mother went out with her other children or went to work, the child was simply left to fend for herself.

“Today, this child has never had a birthday present, a Christmas present or anything else to recognize. She has had no contact with her siblings.

“She had known no daylight or fresh air and did not respond to her own name when she was first found.

“This case has shocked the entire prosecution team and has been very difficult to work on. After reading the evidence, I had to pull back and try to process what I had read.

“As a mother myself, I simply could not understand what this defendant had done and why.

“The motive behind the mother’s behavior is still not clear, but that is not the role of the Crown Prosecution Service.

“It is our job to bring the person responsible to justice. That has now happened and it is the CPS’s deep hope that the victim in this case recovers sufficiently to live as full a life as possible.”