The chilling reason evil mother gave for hiding ’emaciated’ boy, 3, in urine-soaked conservatory with lizard and rabbit with only pet food to eat

“If any of you treated a dog like that, you’d go to jail.”

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

The Nottingham couple, who cannot be named for legal reasons, were found to usually leave 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 that he tried to eat pet food.

But the most chilling detail of this case is the sickening reason for the poor treatment revealed in text messages between the parents.

Although it was admitted in court that the mother could not ‘give a good answer’ to why she had treated her son in such a shocking manner, it was said that telephone conversations showed that she had ‘not formed a bond with him from birth’. .

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

A counselor called police after the boy arrived because he “clearly recognized that he was a victim of extreme neglect.”

The boy weighed just 6.2kg – 7.8kg less than he should for someone his age. And he smelled of stale urine, the 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 their three children, was a ‘fussy 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 morbid details of the case, prosecutor Adrian Amer suggested the reasoning behind the evil mother’s actions.

He told the court: ‘The reasons for the neglect are not clear, but several text messages between the defendants indicate that (she) has not had a bond with him since birth.’

The court also heard that the boy was born ‘very premature’ and did not know she was pregnant with him ‘until her waters broke’.

Phone records showed that the boy’s health was often a topic of conversation.

“(They talked about) hiding him from other family members and he was usually 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 the boy had his first and only doctor’s appointment in 2021, when he was just one. They had actively tried to hide the boy from relatives and from “those monitoring his condition.”

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

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

David Watts, representing the mother, said the parents were now “doing things correctly” and that “things have improved enormously” since the incident.

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

“But things have improved tremendously since it happened.

“Family courts are confident he can be returned to the family. According to information from social services, he is now making good progress. He was born much too early. She didn’t know she was pregnant by him until her water broke.

‘He is at school and the teachers have told the social workers that he is doing well. They’re doing it correctly now.’

During sentencing, following the couple’s decision to both plead guilty to a single charge of willful neglect and abuse 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 resuscitated. In the hospital it was clear that he had been seriously neglected for some time.

‘One doctor described him as if he had been in a concentration camp because you were essentially starving him both physically and emotionally.

‘You deliberately treated him this way, despite others (family) telling you otherwise.

“You all deliberately hid him from those monitoring his condition, treated him differently from the other children and deliberately left him alone at a time when he was so hungry that he tried to eat pet food left in his the room was left behind.

‘An important incriminating characteristic is that you consciously tried to hide what you did. Social Services and the Family Court have decided to return him to your care.

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

“If any of you treated a dog like that, you’d go to jail. He was a little boy.’

The pair were sentenced to three years each.