A “lazy” 24-year-old daughter, who let her mother sit in her own faeces and urine in the same clothes for a year before she died, has been jailed along with her partner.
Natasha Pammant and her partner Liam Leach, 26, left their “skeletal” 58-year-old mother sitting in their Leeds home for an entire year.
The woman’s pitiful existence was only discovered when a concerned neighbor called social services asking for help.
When the social worker entered the home, she said the smell “hit her like a sledgehammer,” and flies hovered over the woman as she lay slumped in a urine-soaked chair.
As soon as the paramedics arrived, they called an ambulance and the woman asked them if they had any food.
Her sweater was stained with feces and the paramedics had to shower her to get her out of the seat before transferring her to the ambulance.
The woman also had large pressure ulcers on her body, including one that went “down to the bone” and could have been fatal.
Natasha Pammant let her ‘skeletal’ 58-year-old mother sit in her Leeds home for a whole year
Her partner Liam Leach, 26, has also been jailed after the vulnerable woman was found in May 2022 when a concerned neighbor called social services asking for help.
Pammant and his partner Leach have been jailed for 30 months.
Prosecutor Catherine Silverton told Leeds Crown Court on Friday: “The woman had physical and mental health difficulties – asthma, COPD, depression, anxiety, self-neglect and malnutrition.” The police responded at the request of the ambulance service in May 2022. A neighbor heard a person screaming and called social services.
It was said that when a social worker looked through a window at the house, he saw a “skeletal leg” and “a swollen ankle and foot.”
Ms Silverton added: “There were a large number of flies and fly papers hanging around the property. She (the woman) was found slumped in a chair. “There were faeces and stains on her jumper and the chair was soaked in urine.
“She had been sitting there for three months. The paramedics had to shower her to get her out of the seat before transferring her to the ambulance. The house smelled so bad that those who entered found it difficult to breathe… The woman had been wearing the same sweater for a year.
Ms Silverton added: “They were consistent with having four months of little or no attention.” The impact would have been fatal if the neighbors had not contacted social services.
‘She said the defendants had knocked over her sofa, prompting her to sit on the chair. She said she gave them her bank card in exchange for money, but they abandoned her for days. She said she asked Mrs Pemmant to clean her up for three days before the police arrived.
The court heard how Pammant’s mother had large pressure ulcers on her body, including one that went “down to the bones” and which could have been fatal.
The court prosecutor said: “Liam Leach blamed the council and doctors for the woman’s situation and described Mrs Pammant as lazy.”
He also had faeces under his toenails and two cockroaches were found on the property, which “did not have any rubbish-free surfaces”, it was said.
Silverton said Pemmant, of Cartmell Drive, Halton, and Leach, of South Farm Road in Gipton, arrived home and Pemmant told police his mother did not want help.
The prosecutor added: ‘A friend of the complainant said she used to visit him up to a year before the police arrived. She said that Mrs Pammant used to make her mother wait until 6pm to eat and that she did not want to take care of her, but she did it for money.
In his interview, Pammant was said to have described “a general situation that was difficult to deal with” and said that “95 per cent of the time it was Liam Leach taking his mother to the toilet”.
Mr Silverton added: “He said his mother did not want medical attention but accepted he should have called an ambulance.” He accepted that the state of the house was disgusting.
“Liam Leach blamed the council and doctors for the woman’s situation and described Mrs Pammant as lazy.”
Both pleaded guilty to one count of cruelty to a person in their care, along with a second offence.
Mitigating Leach, Catherine Duffy said her grandmother had died on the morning of the sentencing. She said: ‘It’s not a case where he had responsibility for the woman. “This case is tragic and serious.”
The court heard Leach now lives alone and showed a probationer around his garden and new property. Mrs Duffy said: “He is very keen to show the probation service the progress he has made in the garden and how he has managed to keep the house clean and tidy.” Duffy said Leach himself has “significant vulnerabilities.”
Kristian Cavanagh, for Pammant, said: “This is a defendant who has struggled with her own suitability as a result of her poor upbringing.” Of course, that insufficiency and lack of maturity (she was 22 years old at the time of the crime) unites both cases and is a problem in the case…
‘She was bullied at school for her own lack of cleanliness and suffered as a result. There was a lack of emotional support from her mother.
Recorder Alex Menary jailed Pamment and Leach for 30 months.
