Mother jailed for scalding toddler (From Swindon Advertiser)

Mother jailed for scalding toddler

5:43pm Monday 4th June 2007 in News By Emily Walker

A MOTHER has been sent to jail after scalding and cutting her two-year-old son.

The 33-year-old mum-of-six from Eldene, who cannot be named for legal reasons, was sentenced to five and a half years in prison at Winchester Crown Court.

Her husband was also jailed for neglect.

The mum-of-six was found guilty of causing deep cuts needing 17 stitches and holding her son's hands in boiling water. The trial was held Swindon Crown Court in January and the couple were sentenced at Winchester.

The little boy was so badly burned he needed plastic surgery on the palms of his hands.

The mum denied actual bodily harm, wounding with intent and six counts of cruelty, but the jury in Swindon did not believe her stories. She was given three years in jail for the cuts to her young son, 18 months for deliberately scalding him and 12 months for cruelly neglecting her children.

She will have to serve the sentences back to back.

She claimed that the toddler fell down the stairs with a coffee pot and burned his arms under a hot tap.

But medical experts told the trial that cuts on the two-year-old's head, face and stomach were all of a uniform depth and not consistent with a fall onto broken glass.

A consultant paediatrician at the Great Western Hospital told Swindon Crown Court that he cuts were "made by a sharp implement and were not accidental".

Burns expert at Bristol's Frenchay hospital, Timothy Burge said: "I strongly feel that the burns occurred with his hands having been held in a standing pool of hot water for a period of several seconds.

"In 20 years of treating burns I have never seen such an injury caused by hot running water."

The court also heard that all six of the family's children were sent to school shabbily dressed, dirty and smelly. They also regularly missed doctors' appointments and school.

The woman's 40-year-old husband, who admitted wilfully neglecting their six children, was sentenced to seven months behind bars.

After the mother's conviction Det Insp Tim Corner of Swindon police said: "This was a sad case of six young children not receiving appropriate and adequate parental care. They are all now in long-term foster care.

"The physical ill treatment of the two-year-old toddler was particularly abhorrent.

"While all offences against young children are distressing, neglect and physical abuse of children at the hands of a parent makes this case even more disturbing."

Commenting on the sentences a NSPCC spokeswoman Kerry Dobb said: "Sentences for offences against children should be appropriate to the crimes committed and should reflect the harm and long-term impact on children and young people."