“If any of you treated a dog like that, you would go to prison.”
This is what a horrified judge told a monstrous mother and father as he jailed them for neglecting a three-year-old boy so much that one doctor said he looked as if he had been kept in a “concentration camp.”
The Nottingham couple, who cannot be named for legal reasons, were found to routinely leave the boy alone in the greenhouse, away from their other children, with only a pet lizard and rabbit to keep him company.
He was so hungry that he tried to eat pet food.
But the most chilling detail in this case is the disgusting motive for the abuse found in text messages between the parents.
While it was admitted in court that the mother could not “give a good answer” as to why she had treated her son in such a shocking way, the telephone conversations were said to suggest that she had “failed to bond with him since the birth”. .
Doctors raised concerns after the young man was rushed to Queen’s Medical Center for critical care in July last year after turning blue and collapsing in a pub in Stoke Bardolph, Nottinghamshire.
A consultant called the police after the boy arrived because he “clearly recognized that he had been the victim of extreme neglect.”
The couple, who cannot be named for legal reasons, were sentenced at Nottingham Crown Court after seriously neglecting their son to the point he tried to eat pet food (pictured).
Judge Steven Coupland said in court: “It was obvious that it had been seriously neglected over a period of time.”
The boy weighed only 6.2 kg, 7.8 kg less than he should for someone his age. And it smelled like stale urine, Nottingham Post reported.
The couple was arrested the next day at their six-bedroom home.
Nottingham Crown Court heard the mother told officers the boy, one of her three children, was a “picky eater” and did not want to eat anything on the day he collapsed.
But the truth turned out to be much more sinister.
And as he unraveled the sick details of the case, Adrian Amer, prosecutor, suggested the reasoning behind the evil mother’s actions.
He told the court: “The reasons for the neglect are unclear, but several text messages between the defendants indicate that she failed to bond with him since he was born.”
The court also heard that the child was born “very premature” and she did not know she was pregnant with him “until her water broke.”
Telephone records showed that the child’s health was a frequent topic of conversation.
“(They talked about) hiding him from other family members and usually left him alone in the greenhouse, away from the other children, with a pet lizard and rabbit to keep him company,” Amer added.
The prosecutor cited medical records showing the boy had his first and only GP appointment in 2021, when he was just one year old. They had actively attempted to hide the boy from family members and “those tracking his condition.”
When the child was taken to the hospital, another doctor said the child was “extremely small for his age and was extremely emaciated and described the child as looking like he had been in a concentration camp” and smelled like rancid urine,” according to Amer. .
To the surprise even of the judge, social services and the family court were said to have decided to return the boy to his parents’ care after spending nine months with social services and a set of grandparents.
David Watts, representing the mother, said the parents were “doing things correctly now” and that “things have improved a lot” since the incident.
He told the court: “They didn’t look after (this child) in the same way they had looked after the others and I don’t think she can give a good answer as to why it happened.”
‘But since it happened things have improved a lot.
‘The family courts are convinced that (he) could be returned to the family. According to social services, he is now progressing well. He was born very premature. She didn’t know she was pregnant with him until her water broke.
‘He is in school and the teachers have told the social workers that he is doing well. “Now they are doing things correctly.”
During sentencing, following the couple’s decision to plead guilty to a single count of willful neglect and ill-treatment of a child, Judge Steven Coupland said: “In July 2023, your three-year-old son collapsed while you were away. .
“He turned blue, stopped breathing and had to be revived. At the hospital it was evident that he had been seriously neglected over a period of time.
‘One doctor described it as if he had been in a concentration camp because the two of you were effectively starving him both physically and emotionally.
‘You deliberately treated him this way even though others (family members) told you otherwise.
‘Each of you deliberately hid him from those who followed his condition, treated him differently from the other children, deliberately left him alone at a time when he was so hungry that he tried to eat pet food that was in the room with him.
«An important aggravating factor is that you deliberately tried to hide what you were doing. Social services and the family court have made the decision to return him to their care.
‘Given the facts of the case, I am surprised and you should both receive the criminal case documents at the end of this hearing.
‘If any of you treated a dog like that, you would go to prison. He was a little boy.
The couple were sentenced to three years each.