Mom Hid Daughter in a Drawer for 3 Years

A woman who kept her daughter in one of her divan bed's drawers for the first three years of her life is now to spend more than twice as long behind bars. The UK woman, who was not identified to protect her daughter's identity, admitted to four counts of child cruelty last month before she was sentenced at Chester Crown Court to 7.5 years in prison, the BBC reports. Prosecutors said the child had "never known daylight or fresh air" before she was discovered by a visitor to the mother's home in February 2023. A social worker who visited afterward described her "overwhelming horror" at the sight of a child with deformities and rashes who looked more like a seven-month-old infant than a 3-year-old child.

The court was told the mother concealed the girl's birth from her partner, who often visited the home, as well as her other children (who didn't live in the home), and left the child to "fend for herself" for long periods without sufficient food. The girl was only ever fed milky cereal through a syringe, per CNN. Prosecutors said she was severely malnourished, couldn't speak, walk, or even crawl, and was suffering from untreated medical issues, including a cleft palate. "I don't remember a case as bad as this in my 46 years," said Judge Steven Everett, adding the child experienced "what was almost a living death." He said the mother had "starved that little girl of any love, any proper affection, any proper attention, any interaction with others."

The mother told police the child was only kept in the drawer at certain times and that the drawer was never closed, per the BBC. She said she didn't know she was pregnant when she gave birth at home in March 2020 and didn't consider the child, who resulted from an abusive relationship, to be "part of the family." During one Christmas, she took her other children to stay with her parents overnight, leaving the girl alone in the drawer, the Guardian reports. "What you did was wicked beyond belief," said Everett. "Your actions were catastrophic." Prosecutors noted the girl, now in foster care, has serious developmental issues as a result of "extreme neglect." (More child cruelty stories.)