The chilling cause evil mom gave for hiding ’emaciated’ boy, 3, in urine-soaked conservatory with lizard and rabbit with solely pet meals to eat

‘If either of you treated a dog like that, you would be going to prison’.

This was what a horrified judge told a monstrous mother and father as he jailed them for neglecting a three-year-old boy so badly a doctor said he looked like he’d been kept in a ‘concentration camp’.

The couple from Nottingham, who cannot be named for legal reasons, were found to have habitually left the young boy alone in the conservatory away from their other children with only a pet lizard and rabbit to keep him company.

He was so starved he tried to eat pet food.

But the most chilling detail of this case is the sickening reason for the ill treatment 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, it was said that phone conversations suggested that she had ‘failed to bond with him from birth’.

Medics raised concerns after the young boy was rushed to Queen’s Medical Centre for critical care in July last year after turning blue and collapsing at a pub in Stoke Bardolph, Nottinghamshire. 

A consultant called the police after the boy arrived as he ‘clearly recognised he was the victim of extreme neglect’.

The boy weighed just 6.2kg – 7.8kg less than he should for a someone his age. And he smelt of stale urine, the Nottingham Post reported.

The couple were arrested at their six-bedroom home the following day.

Nottingham Crown Court heard that the mother told officers the boy, one of their three children, was a ‘picky eater’ and that he 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, prosecuting, suggested the reasoning behind the evil mother’s actions.

He told the court: ‘The reasons for the neglect is not clear but various text messages between the defendants indicate (she) failed to bond with him from birth.’

It was also heard in court that the boy was born ‘very premature’ and was not aware she was pregnant with him ‘until her waters broke’.

Phone records showed the boy’s ‘health was a frequent topic of conversation.

‘(They spoke of) hiding him from other family members and he was habitually left alone in the conservatory away from the other children with a pet lizard and rabbit to keep him company’, Amer added. 

The prosecutor cited medical records showing that the boy had his first and only GP appointment in 2021 when he was just one. They had actively tried to hide the boy from family members and from ‘those tracking his condition’.

When the boy was taken to hospital, another doctor said the child was ‘extremely small for his age and was extremely emaciated and described the child as ‘looking like it had been in a concentration camp’ and smelling of stale urine’, according to Amer.

To even the judge’s surprise, it was said that social services and family court had decided to return the boy to the parents’ care after spending nine months with social services and with one set of grandparents.

David Watts, representing the mother, said that the parents were ‘doing things correctly now’ and that ‘things have improved greatly’ since the incident.

He told the court: ‘They failed to look after (this child) in a way they had looked after their others and I don’t think she can give a good answer to why it happened. 

‘But since it happened things have improved greatly.

‘Family courts are satisfied (he) could be returned to the family. Information from social services is that he is now making good progress. He was born very premature. She did not know she was pregnant with him until her waters broke.

‘He’s at school and the teachers have told social workers he is doing well. They are doing things correctly now.’ 

During sentencing, following the couple’s decision to both plead guilty to a single charge of wilful neglect and ill-treatment of a child, Judge Steven Coupland said: ‘In July 2023, your three-year-old son collapsed while you were out. 

‘He turned blue, stopped breathing and had to be resuscitated. At the hospital it was obvious he had been severely neglected over a period of time.

‘One doctor described him as looking like 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 despite others (family) telling you otherwise.

‘You were each deliberately hiding him from those tracking his condition, you were treating him differently from the other children, deliberately leaving him alone at a time he was so hungry he tried to eat pet food left in the room with him.

‘A significant aggravating feature is that you deliberately tried to conceal what you were doing. Social services and family court have made a decision to return him to your care.

‘Given the facts of the case I am surprised by that and both should be given the criminal case papers at the end of this hearing.

‘If either of you treated a dog like that, you would be going to prison. He was a little boy.’

The pair were sentenced to three years each.