Monday 21 October 2013

INFANTICIDE (attempted): Indiana: Sasha Hunt Stuffed A Sock In Her Baby Son's Mouth And Left Him To Die:


Posted:
   |  Updated: 10/21/2013 12:12 pm EDT

Sasha Hunt
A young mother in Berne, Ind., was arrested on child neglect and attempted murder charges after police say she allegedly stuffed a sock in her baby's mouth and left him face down in a closet to die last week.
According to police, on Oct. 13, Sasha Hunt, 22, placed a sock over the mouth of her 3-month-old son and wrapped tape around his head to keep the sock in place. Hunt then wrapped the infant in a blanket, put him face down on a pillow, and shut the baby inside a closet.
Hunt's husband discovered the baby after hearing muffled cries and saved his life.WANE.com reports that he gave his wife, who has bipolar disorder, an ultimatum -- either go to the hospital or the police. After Hunt checked into the hospital, the husband and his mother went to the police to report the incident.
The News-Sentinel reports that Hunt had been on medication for her disorder, but had stopped taking her meds while pregnant. According to the newspaper, there had been other trouble at home recently.
Sadly, it appears this incident is not the first time Hunt had tried to hurt her baby.
Hunt's husband told police that his wife had previously handled the child roughly. According to police, when the husband had questioned Hunt about bruises on the baby, she allegedly told him that she hated the baby and wished it had never been born.
Hunt was arrested Wednesday on charges of child neglect and attempted murder. Police ordered a non-voluntary committal to Behavior Health at Adams Memorial Hospital for the accused mother after obtaining evidence from her home.

Tuesday 15 October 2013

INFANTICIDE: Arizona: Melissa Centeno arested and charged Beat To Death Her 4 year old daughter


Betzy Rodriguez Centeno

A 4-year-old Arizona girl who died last week after her mother hit her in the abdomen may have been the victim of long-term child abuse.
The girl's mother, 19-year-old Melissa Centeno, told investigators that she struck her daughter in the abdomen while disciplining her on Friday night. She said that the toddler, Betzy Rodriguez-Centeno, complained of belly pain and vomited, but it appears neither the teen mom nor her live-in boyfriend took action until the girl stopped breathing Sunday night.
Sergio Luis Ortiz, the mother's 22-year-old boyfriend, tried to give the girl mouth-to-mouthwhile Centeno called 911, according to Fox Phoenix.
Emergency responders attempted to revive the girl at the apartment, then took her to a Phoenix-area hospital, where she died.
Police arrested Ortiz and Centeno on suspicion of child abuse after doctors found "suspicious bruising" all over her body. According to court documents, Centeno told police that she and Ortiz sometimes got "heavy handed" disciplining the girl.
"Their stories were not consistent with anything accidentally happening to the baby. The mother ... admitted that she knew this child was suffering," Phoenix Police Officer James Holmes told 3TV News.
Centeno faces two counts of child abuse and was held on $750,000 bond. Ortiz faces one count of child abuse and was held on $15,000 bond. Holmes told the station that both could also face murder charges.
Child Protective Services took custody of a 1-year-old who is the couple's child. Ortiz is not the biological father of the victim.
In September, a Tolleson, Ariz., couple was arrested and charged with the murder of their 2-year-old son. Police alleged that the father beat the child to death with a belt.

Sunday 13 October 2013

INFANTICIDE: Mass: Ashley Cyr's baby had heroin in formula

ryan barry heroin baby
QUINCY, Mass. -- QUINCY, Mass. (AP) — A couple accused of killing their 5-month-old daughter by giving her a bottle of formula with heroin in it were charged with manslaughter on Friday.
Ryan Barry and Ashley Cyr, both of Quincy, just south of Boston, were arrested Friday. They pleaded not guilty and were ordered held on $200,000 cash bail.
The couple's daughter Mya Barry died in September 2011, when the family lived in Marshfield, a half-hour drive southeast of Quincy.
Police responded to a 911 call and found the baby on the living room floor with her grandmother performing CPR on her, Plymouth County District Attorney Tim Cruz's office said. The baby was pronounced dead at a hospital a short time later.
Police said they found 3 grams of heroin and hypodermic needles on a shelf in a bedroom shared by Barry, Cyr, the baby and her two sisters, ages 3 and 4.
Prosecutor Frank Middleton said Barry told police that Cyr was reckless in her drug use and that he had seen her snort heroin off a Dr. Seuss book and then leave the book on the floor where the kids could get at it.
Middleton said in court that Barry told police he had made the baby's last bottle by mixing 2 ounces of formula with 2 ounces of water. He said that when Barry was pressed on how the heroin could have gotten into the bottle he said maybe someone had cleaned a dirty syringe in the water bottle he used to make the formula.
Testing determined that the baby formula in the bottle contained heroin. An autopsy determined that the baby died from opiate poisoning.
A grand jury returned manslaughter indictments against Barry, 30, and Cyr, 26, on Thursday. Cyr also was charged with one count of reckless endangerment of a child.
Barry's lawyer, Liam Scully, said that it was unclear who put the heroin in the baby's bottle and that Barry denies any wrongdoing.
"He was devastated by the death of his daughter and is coping with that tragedy the best that he can," Scully said.
Cyr's lawyer didn't immediately return a call seeking comment Friday.
Barry and Cyr are due back in court Nov. 8 for a pretrial conference.

Thursday 10 October 2013

INFANTICIDE (attempted): Arizona: Teen Mom Allegedly Throws Baby Out Window, Faces Attempted Homicide Charges


Posted:   |  Updated: 10/10/2013 10:34 am EDT
An Arizona teen faces criminal charges after police said she threw her newborn baby out a bathroom window.
Maricopa County sheriff's deputies responded to a call about an injured teen on Tuesday night. When they arrived at a family's home, they discovered a 16-year-old who was bleeding profusely after giving birth. But disturbingly, they did not see a baby.
After searching for a half hour, deputies found the newborn in a backyard shed, according to KPHO. Investigators said they determined that the mother allegedly threw the baby out a bathroom window in an attempt to hide her pregnancy. The child fell five feet and hit its head on a brick, and was rushed to an area hospital with life-threatening injuries.
The mother faces child abuse and attempted homicide charges. The child is expected to live, and was taken in by Child Protective Services.
Arizona's safe haven law protects abandoned babies. Under the law, unwanted newborns up to 3 days old can be left with on duty staff member at any hospital, emergency medical service provider, fire station or with any licensed private child welfare agency, licensed adoption agency or any church in the state.
In August, a Kentucky mother was arrested after allegedly leaving her child in the bathroom trash at the department store where she worked. The mother now faces murder charges. In a police interview, the woman told investigators that she thought she had miscarried.

FILICIDE: UK: Obese decoys will be used to help smuggle Baby P's mother (Tracey Connelly) out of prison

Obese decoys will be used to help smuggle Baby P's mother out of prison after she ballooned to 22STONE while inside

  • Tracey Connelly, 32, of Haringey, north London, jailed indefinitely in 2009
  • Peter tortured to death in 2007 by her boyfriend and his paedophile brother
  • 32-year-old is set to walk free this week without protection of new identity
  • Having ballooned to 22st 'decoys' may also leave a jail when she does 
  • Similar plan was used when Maxine Carr was released after Soham case
Tracey Connelly, who has ballooned to 22st in a Durham jail, was this week granted parole despite allowing her boyfriend and his paedophile brother to torture to death her son Peter.
After five years behind bars, prison and probation bosses are likely to use subterfuge to stop the 32-year-old being photographed, traced and attacked by vigilantes when she leaves 'within days'.
Connelly has gained at least a stone for every year she has been in jail, having previously admitted
'I put on a lot of weight when I came to prison' by gorging on pizza and jam tarts in solitary confinement. 
Undated Metropolitan Police handout image of Tracey Connelly, mother of Baby Peter
Undated file handout photo issued by ITV News of Baby P
Freedom: Tracey Connelly, 32, left, is set to leave prison this week and having put on weight decoy women of a similar build could be used to sneak her out. She was jailed in 2009 over the death of her son Peter, right
Sources have said a plan is in place to hide Connelly inside a car within the prison walls before being swept to a secret location to start a new life.
Meanwhile extra vehicles containing women of a similar weight with their faces covered could also be used to throw anyone keen to follow her off the scent.
The same ploy was used when the girlfriend of Soham murderer Maxine Carr left prison.
 In 2004, when Carr left Foston Hall prison in Derbyshire, she was stowed in the footwell of a car at the same time as several similar vehicles also left.
'It will be difficult to get her out without being seen, but there are ways and means,' a Probation Service source told the Daily Mirror.
'She may not be freed straight away, but when she is, they will use tactics to ensure she is not photographed, just as they did with Maxine Carr.'
Set to leave: Connelly - who is at Low Newton jail (pictured) in Brasside, County Durham - applied to the Parole Board to have her case reviewed and they have agreed to release her after five years
Set to leave: Connelly - who is at Low Newton jail (pictured) in Brasside, County Durham - applied to the Parole Board to have her case reviewed and they have agreed to release her after five years
Connelly will also be given detailed advice on how to hide who she is when she leaves jail in the coming days to avoid being found.
Ploy: Maxine Carr was smuggled out of jail in the footwell of a car in 2004 when she left prison
Ploy: Maxine Carr was smuggled out of jail in the footwell of a car in 2004 when she left prison
She will leave Low Newton jail near Durham for a parole hostel to start her reintegration back into society.
She is already said to look markedly different from her notorious mugshot, having put on weight while in prison.
But probation officers will also advise her to change her name by deed poll, change the colour of her hair and have it cut differently.
A Ministry of Justice spokesperson said: 'The release of life and other indeterminate sentence prisoners is directed by the independent Parole Board once they are satisfied they can be safely managed in the community.
'The IPP licence lasts for a minimum of 10 years, and an offender on an IPP licence may be recalled to prison at any time for breaching their licence conditions. Additionally, they will be subject to strict controls and restrictions for as long as their risk requires them.'
After just five years in jail experts believe she poses ‘no danger to the public’, despite committing a crime that horrified Britain.
Connelly was jailed indefinitely in 2009 after she admitted doing nothing while her little boy was tortured to death by her boyfriend Steven Barker and his paedophile brother Jason Owen.
Peter was just 17 months old when he was found dead in his blood-spattered cot at his mother’s flat in Tottenham, north London, after suffering 50 separate injuries, including a broken back.
The case provoked a national scandal after it emerged that social workers, police and doctors missed a series of warning signs that could have saved the child’s life.
Stephen Barker, father of Baby Peter
Jason Owen, 37, of Bromley, Kent, one of the three people jailed over the death of Baby Peter
Indefinite sentences: Tracey Connelly's boyfriend Steven Barker (left) and his paedophile brother Jason Owen (right) were both convicted of causing or allowing Peter's death
Sickened by the depravity, 132,000 people joined ‘hate groups’ on social networking internet sites calling for Connelly, Barker and Owen to ‘burn in hell’.
Some threatened to violently attack them when they are eventually released.
Despite widespread horror at her imminent release, ministers have decided she should not be granted lifetime anonymity and round-the-clock police protection.
Anonymity orders are rare and only four are currently in force.
These apply to child killer Mary Bell, James Bulger’s murderers Robert Thompson and Jon Venables and to Maxine Carr, who provided a false alibi for Soham murderer Ian Huntley.
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Monday 7 October 2013

FILICIDE: Yvonne Kidman, mother of Toronto boy who died of starvation testifies

Jeffrey Baldwin

Jeffrey Baldwin is pictured in this undated photo.

The Canadian Press
Published Monday, October 7, 2013 2:13PM EDT 
Last Updated Monday, October 7, 2013 5:11PM EDT
TORONTO -- A Toronto woman who starved her five-year-old grandson to death wanted custody of the boy and his siblings because she lived in social housing and without them she could lose her home, a coroner's inquest heard Monday.
Jeffrey Baldwin's mother told the inquest that her mother was constantly threatening to take her four children away.
"(It) seemed like all she ever wanted was my kids," Yvonne Kidman told the inquest.

Jeffrey, who weighed just 21 pounds when he died at almost age six, and his other sister ended up in their grandparents' care in the same way. Their younger brother was apprehended hours after he was born.
Kidman's parents, Elva Bottineau and Norman Kidman, did eventually get custody of all four children. The eldest sister was apprehended first by the Catholic Children's Aid Society and put in Bottineau's care, then she went to family court to get permanent custody.
It wasn't until after Jeffrey's death that the children's aid society discovered in their own records that Bottineau and Kidman had each been convicted of abusing her children from a previous relationship.
Around the time Bottineau and Kidman got custody of Jeffrey and one of his sisters, two of their own daughters had moved out and the third was thinking of leaving, Yvonne Kidman testified.
"She was on the verge of losing her home because she loses all her money," Kidman said, but she didn't figure it out at the time. Bottineau and Kidman lived in social housing.
Back then, as a mother of three barely out of her teens, she just knew she kept losing custody of her children to her mother.
"She used to threaten me that she'd take them away and I'd never see them again," Kidman said.
Kidman and her mother did not have a good relationship, she said. She was kicked out of the house at age 16 and had her first child -- a planned pregnancy with boyfriend Richard Baldwin -- not long after.
But when the teenage parents fought, sometimes physically, they would phone Bottineau for advice, they have each testified. Records show that Bottineau would then call the children's aid society and relay information about those fights to them.
Kidman disputed much of the information contained in Catholic Children's Aid Society files, such as allegations she yelled at her kids, that her apartment was dirty, that the children didn't have any bedtime routines and were kept up as late as 2 a.m., that she hit her kids and shook two of them in a welfare office.
She and Richard Baldwin had problems, she admitted, but the children were happy and healthy.
As they lost custody of each child to the grandparents under what they thought were temporary arrangements, Bottineau would file for, and get, permanent custody in family court.
The young parents couldn't afford a lawyer and didn't know they would likely qualify for legal aid, Kidman testified. It felt like they didn't have much choice but to agree to the grandparents getting custody, Kidman said.
"It felt like me and Richard were forced to sign it," Kidman said. "It was either a) they either went to my parents or they went to foster care, where I would never ever see them again."
When the kids were in Bottineau and Kidman's care, the young parents were frequently denied their court-ordered visits, Yvonne Kidman said.
Within about four years of living under Bottineau and Kidman's roof Jeffrey withered and died. He and the sister closest in age to him were locked in their cold, barely furnished room for long stretches of time and were denied access to the bathroom because they drank out of the toilet, the inquest has heard. So they urinated and defecated in their bedroom and were then forced to mop up their own waste.
The two were severely underfed and a pediatric nutritionist has testified that the fact Jeffrey's sister was allowed to go to school, where a daily snack was provided, may have saved her life.
By the end of Jeffrey's short life he could barely walk and couldn't lift his own head, the inquest has heard. A pathologist testified that Jeffrey would have suffered greatly at the end as his body would have been too weak to keep up with the rapid breathing necessitated by the pneumonia that ultimately killed him.
Bottineau and Kidman were ultimately convicted of second-degree murder in his death and are serving life sentences.
Yvonne Kidman is scheduled to continue her testimony Tuesday


Read more: http://www.cp24.com/news/mother-of-toronto-boy-who-died-of-starvation-testifies-1.1487087#ixzz2h5jngVb9

Sunday 6 October 2013

FILICIDE UK: Teenager, 18, charged with causing death of four-month-old baby and neglecting two others

  • Mother charged with neglecting baby's two siblings, aged three and one 
  • Baby taken to hospital but pronounced dead after just 15 minutes
  • Teenager will appear at Thames Magistrates' Court tomorrow

An 18-year-old woman has today been charged with causing the death of her four-month-old baby daughter.
Police have also charged the teenager with wilful neglect of the baby girl and her two siblings, aged three and one.
She will appear at Thames Magistrates' Court in east London tomorrow. 
The woman, 18, will appear at Thames Magistrates' Court (pictured) tomorrow
The woman, 18, will appear at Thames Magistrates' Court (pictured) tomorrow charged with causing the death of her baby daughter and neglecting two other children, aged one and three years old
Detectives from the Metropolitan Police's Homicide and Major Crime Command unit launched an investigation after the baby girl died on Friday. 

She was taken to hospital by paramedics at about 5.30pm from a house in Bow, east London, but was pronounced dead just 15 minutes later. 

The London Ambulance Service contacted police due to the girl's condition. 
The woman, who has not been named by the police, was arrested yesterday and later charged.
A post mortem has yet to take place
ymail.co.uk/news/article-2446601/Teenager-18-charged-causing-death-month-old-baby-neglecting-others.html#ixzz2gxkXtTZ0 
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Friday 4 October 2013

Child Suicide age 5: Louisiana: Laderika Smith: Judge tosses mother’s murder indictment


Girl, 5, shot self in head while mother was out
A New Orleans judge tossed out a murder charge against a mother Thursday who locked her 5-year-old daughter alone in their home with a loaded .38-caliber revolver, despite warnings from the child’s school counselor that the kindergartner had talked about her desire to commit suicide.
Laderika Smith returned home June 24 to find her daughter dying in a closet, a self-inflicted bullet hole through her forehead.
Smith was indicted on a charge of second-degree murder, with police and prosecutors arguing she was so grossly negligent in leaving the child alone with a loaded gun that she should face a charge punishable by an automatic life sentence.
They said the mother knew her child, Brandajah, had contemplated suicide.
A school counselor had told Smith that the child talked in detail about ending her own life. She asked questions that suggested to the school she was serious, like whether she would ever see her sister again if she died.
The school was so alarmed it assigned someone to follow the child around so she was never left alone, prosecutors said.
The mother, a convicted thief and prostitute, was aware of her child’s suicidal thoughts, but still left her alone that Sunday morning, knowing there was a loaded gun within her reach, prosecutors said in defense of the murder charge.
Orleans Parish Criminal District Court Judge Darryl Derbigny threw out the indictment, agreeing with Smith’s defense attorney that a murder charge was too much of a stretch.
“It is the opinion of this court that the defendant could not have conceivably intended to leave her child home alone for the reason that she actively desired her own child to commit suicide,” Derbigny wrote in his order.
“Such a leap of logic is beyond the realm of what is capable of being imagined or even grasped mentally.”
The state Supreme Court considered a similar case in Shreveport last fall, and decided that criminal negligence, even if it set in motion a chain of events that ended with a child’s death, still did not constitute a murder.
In January 2008, Shreveport resident Satonia Small left her 6-year-old daughter and 7-year-old son home alone when she left to get drunk at a party.
A fire erupted while she was away. The boy escaped; the girl did not.
Prosecutors there used logic similar to that which the Orleans Parish District Attorney’s Office adopted against Smith.
A second-degree murder charge typically requires that prosecutors prove a person had the specific intent to kill or harm another person. But both women were charged under a secondary definition of the crime: The killing occurred as the person was engaged in another violent felony.
Prosecutors cited cruelty to a juvenile, stemming from the negligence of leaving children at home, as the underlying offense to support murder charges against both women.
They were so grossly negligent their inaction caused the children to die, prosecutors argued.
Small was convicted by a jury, but the Supreme Court threw out the conviction.
“We find that a conviction for second-degree murder cannot be supported in this case, where defendant’s criminally negligent act of leaving her young children alone in the middle of the night was not a ‘direct act’ of killing but was instead a criminally negligent act of lack of supervision which resulted in the child’s death,” the court wrote.
It ordered that Small be tried on a charge of negligent homicide, a lesser offense that is punishable by no more than five years in prison and requires no minimum sentence.
Smith’s defense attorney, Daniel Engelberg, cited that Supreme Court ruling in asking Derbigny to scrap the murder indictment against Smith.
He described Brandajah’s death as a tragedy, which he said was compounded by the state’s dramatically overcharging the mother.
Engelberg noted neither the gun nor the home belonged to Smith.
Both are owned by a cousin, Leon Warren, who was indicted with her on a charge of being a felon in possession of a firearm. The gun was allegedly on a shelf in the closet, according to testimony at a hearing last week.
Smith left her daughter at the house, watching television, while she walked around the block, chatted with neighbors and stopped to watch a street fight, she told police.
She returned to find that the girl had shot herself.
Prosecutors told the court that it should consider what the mother knew of her daughter’s allegedly suicidal thoughts.
Dr. Michael Scheeringa, a child psychiatry professor at Tulane University, said it is unlikely a child of 5 could have fully understood the abstract concept of suicide.
Children usually can’t even truly grasp the concept of death, he said: “At that age, children understand literally. They don’t have knowledge that death means forever.”
Without being able to talk to the child, it’s impossible to know whether she actually intended to commit suicide, he said.
“That’s not a word that a 5-year-old comes up with. It makes you wonder: Where did she hear that? What was the context? Who talked to her about that?” asked Scheeringa, who has studied emotional and behavioral problems of very young children.
He suggested that the child must have heard adults discuss suicide, or picked it up from television.
Prosecutors argued the child truly intended to end her life.
They said her home life was miserable and she told her school counselor she had been sexually assaulted by a family member; the counselor passed that information on to her mother.
Christopher Bowman, a spokesman for District Attorney Leon Cannizzaro, declined Thursday to discuss the allegations of sexual abuse, or whether they were reported to police before the child’s death.
No one has been charged with abusing Brandajah.
Assistant District Attorney Laura Rodrigue told Derbigny on Thursday that prosecutors plan to appeal his order scrapping the indictment to the 4th Circuit Court of Appeal.
“We disagree with the court’s ruling,” she said. “We are going to be seeking a murder charge.”
If the 4th Circuit and the Supreme Court decline to intervene, prosecutors will have to charge Smith with a lesser offense, probably negligent homicide.
Smith has been held on the murder charge on a $1 million bond, but Engelberg asked the judge to order that she be released, since his decision basically means she is no longer charged with any crime.
He said she’s not a flight risk or a threat to the public.
“It flies in the face of common sense,” he said. “And it doesn’t equate with what happened in this tragedy.”
Rodrigue asked the judge prevent Smith’s release until the appeals court considers the state’s request to reinstate the murder charge.
“She’s not going home,” Rodrigue said. “A new charge will be filed against her.”
Derbigny decided on a compromise.
He lowered Smith’s bond to $100,000, an amount her attorney said would be impossible for her to meet.

FILICIDE (multiple): NY: Leatrice Brewer requests funds from estate of her children she killed


By FRANK ELTMAN
 10/03/13 05:44 PM ET EDT AP

MINEOLA, N.Y. -- MINEOLA, N.Y. (AP) — A mentally disturbed woman who drowned her three young children in a bathtub is going to court to ask a judge for a cut of their $350,000 estate.
Leatrice Brewer will be taken from an upstate psychiatric facility to testify about her request next month, Nassau County Surrogate's Court Judge Edward McCarty ruled Thursday.
Brewer, 33, was found not guilty because of mental disease or defect in the deaths of her children, ages 1, 5 and 6, so her attorneys say she shouldn't be subject to laws that bar convicts from profiting from their crimes.
Brewer admitted she drowned the children in the bathtub of her apartment in New Cassel, on Long Island about 20 miles east of New York City, in February 2008. She later placed the children's bodies on a bed and tried to kill herself by swallowing a concoction of household cleaning chemicals. When that suicide bid failed, she jumped out her second-story window but again survived.
Instead of facing trial on three murder counts in the children's deaths, Brewer pleaded not responsible by reason of mental disease or defect. Psychiatrists had determined she suffered a major depressive disorder and believed she killed the children to save them from the potentially fatal effects of voodoo.
Brewer is being kept at a state psychiatric hospital until psychiatrists determine she's no longer mentally ill.
Although the case would establish a precedent in New York if Brewer succeeds, she's not expected to see any money because of a $1.2 million lien against her for psychiatric counseling and other services she has received since her arrest, attorneys said.
New York's Son of Sam Law, named for the 1970s serial killer and amended in 2001, was designed to prevent criminals from profiting from their crimes, such as by selling their stories to book publishers or moviemakers. The judge in Brewer's case, though, has noted the unique aspect — that Brewer wasn't convicted.
The case drew attention to Nassau County's social services agency, whose caseworkers visited Brewer's apartment two days before the killings and found no one home but neglected to schedule an immediate follow-up visit. Two social workers were later suspended.
Lawsuits against the county filed by the father of Brewer's 1-year-old son, Innocent Demesyeux, and 5-year-old son, Michael Demesyeux, were settled for $250,000. A lawsuit filed by the father of Brewer's 6-year-old daughter, Jewell Ward, was recently settled for $100,000.
The judge has scheduled a Nov. 6 hearing on the matter.

FILICIDE: UK: Amada Hutton found guilty of manslaughter

How could little boy's mummified body lie undiscovered in his home for TWO years? As alcoholic mother is found guilty of starving son aged 4 to death, shocking failures of social workers, police, NHS and teachers are revealed

  • Amanda Hutton found guilty of the manslaughter of her four-year-old son
  • Police found Hamzah Khan's mummified remains in a cot with a teddy
  • Jury had been told told Hamzah most probably died from malnutrition
  • Det Supt Lisa Griffin says case was worst she had seen in 28 years service
  • Services attended Hutton's home numerous times over the years
  • Now all blaming each other for failing to spot the tell-tale signs
Guilty: Amanda Hutton arrives at court yesterday where she was found guilty of starving her child to death
Guilty: Amanda Hutton at court yesterday where she was found guilty of starving her child to death
A four-year-old boy who starved to death had become ‘invisible to society’ through the failings of social services, charities said last night.
The mummified body of Hamzah Khan was found by police at his family home nearly two years after he died from malnutrition.
He had suffered years of shocking neglect and was so malnourished that he was wearing clothing for a six- to nine-month-old child when he died.
Yesterday, as his mother was convicted of starving him to death, charities demanded to know how he had ‘disappeared off the radar of his community and services’.
Social services, police, health workers and teachers were all in regular contact with mother-of-eight Amanda Hutton, 43, an alcoholic and cannabis addict.
They held two ‘multi-agency risk assessment conferences’ about the family in the 18 months before Hamzah’s death on December 15, 2009.
But the agencies were so focused on helping Hutton – believing she was a victim of domestic abuse – that they were oblivious to the threat she posed to her son and the other five young children living in the home.
All the main public agencies have serious questions to answer over Hamzah’s death and the failure to discover his fate until September 2011.
From the age of two weeks, Hamzah was never seen by a nurse or doctor and never immunised. 
When his mother repeatedly missed appointments for her son, instead of prompting concern, this simply led the health centre to remove them from its patients’ list – a practice which is now being examined over fears that it allows children to ‘sink further below the radar’.
Police officers also had opportunities to intervene. 
They attended domestic violence incidents at the family home eight times in four-and-a-half years.
And when Hutton’s partner Aftab Khan, the father of her children, was arrested for assaulting her in December 2008, he warned officers his son was undernourished, neglected and should be seen by a doctor.
 
But police saw nothing to alarm them about Hamzah’s welfare.
Hamzah was also seen several times by social services, but was deemed to be ‘well cared for’ when he was visited as a toddler at the family home in Bradford.
The little boy had been due to start school three months before he died. His siblings at the school regularly failed to attend or were in a terrible physical state.
Shocking: Hamzah's decomposed body was found in his mother's Bradford home two years after he died in 2009
Shocking: Hamzah's decomposed body was found in his mother's home two years after he died in 2009
Review: Social services, health workers, police and teachers were all in regular contact with the family
Review: Social services, health workers, police and teachers were all in regular contact with the family
But although a concerned health visitor contacted the local primary school about Hamzah’s failure to attend, the alarm wasn’t raised.
As a result he lay dead for two years before his decomposed remains were found by police in September 2011, when he would have been six.
When the authorities asked where he was, family members said he was visiting relatives in Portsmouth – an excuse which appears to have been accepted without question.
The defendant’s father, Alan Hutton, hit out at social services after the case. 
Abusive: Social services and police saw Hutton as an abuse victim. They failed to notice her own dreadful actions
Abusive: Social services and police saw Hutton as an abuse victim. They failed to notice her own actions
Alcoholic: Hutton was so drunk she could stand when she was brought into custody on 21 September 2011
Alcoholic: Hutton was so drunk she could stand when she was brought into custody on 21 September 2011
Dreadful: The cannabis addict has five school-aged children that lived with her in squalor of drugs and alcohol
Dreadful: The cannabis addict has five school-aged children that lived with her in squalor of drugs and alcohol
He told the Mail: ‘They should have intervened. There was an apathy there.’
Police also appeared to try to shift the blame on to Bradford social workers. 
Detective Superintendent Lisa Griffin, of West Yorkshire Police, said: ‘Each time we engaged with Amanda, we referred the matter through to the social services department.’
She said when officers dealt with the incidents of domestic violence, there were no concerns raised about Hamzah.
Commenting on a ‘welfare check’ made by an officer at the house eight months before Hamzah died, she said: ‘The home environment appeared perfectly adequate.
This is the home in which little Hamzah spent his short life before mother Hutton let him starve to death
This is the home in which little Hamzah spent his short life before mother Hutton let him starve to death
‘That said, police officers are not health professionals, they make an assessment based on their own professional judgment and there were no concerns at that time.’
She blamed Hutton for refusing to co-operate with professionals. 
‘As a mother myself I find it appalling that she should have allowed this set of circumstances to play out as it did and for that poor child to suffer in the way that he clearly did.’ 
Social services hit back by stressing Hamzah was never ‘referred’ to them and police simply ‘notified’ them of domestic abuse incidents.
Peter Wanless, chief executive of the NSPCC, said: ‘It is self-evident that something went seriously wrong for this child. 
'It appears Hamzah disappeared off the radar of his community and services, and a full picture of the horror that was his life emerged two years too late.’
Picture shows Amanda Hutton entering Bradford Crown Court
Father: Aftab Khan, who was convicted of beating Hutton in 2008, said he told police of the neglect
Avoidable: Aftab Khan (right), Hamzah's father who was convicted of beating Hutton in 2008, said he told police of the neglect and state of their home years ago. But they let Hutton (left) continue her antics under the radar
In court: Hutton in the witness box questioned by prosecutor Mr Greade. She admitted to cruelty to her other children and failing to bury Hamzah. The jury deliberated for five hours
In court: Amanda Hutton in the witness box being questioned by prosecutor Mr Greade. She admitted to cruelty to her other children and failing to bury Hamzah. The jury deliberated for five hours before returning the verdict
Controversy: The case has sparked a war of words between services as they cast off the blame on each other
Controversy: The case has sparked a war of words between services as they cast off the blame on each other
A serious case review, examining the role of all the agencies involved with the case, will be published later.
Mohammad Shabbir, the local city councillor, said the agencies should take a ‘collective responsibility to protect vulnerable people’.
He added: ‘Concerns should be followed through to the end. In this case the end was the tragic loss of a life.’
Complicit: Hutton's other son, Tariq Khan, 24, is pictured here entering Bradford Crown Court
Complicit: Hutton's other son, Tariq Khan, 24, is pictured here entering Bradford Crown Court before he is charged with one count of preventing the lawful and decent burial of a body. He will be sentenced today
PC Jodie Dunsmore of West Yorkshire Police who repeatedly visited the home of manslaughter convict Hutton
PC Jodie Dunsmore of West Yorkshire Police who repeatedly visited the home of manslaughter convict Hutton
Ralph Berry, Bradford Council’s executive member for children, said: ‘Hamzah’s death is a dreadful tragedy which has shocked and appalled local people. 
'We welcome the serious case review and its public examination of the circumstances of Hamzah’s death.’
Hutton admitted child cruelty against her other five young children and also to failing to lawfully bury Hamzah’s body.
Her eldest son Tariq Khan, 24, admitted the burial charge and both will be sentenced today.
Hutton showed no emotion as a jury found her guilty of manslaughter by gross negligence at Bradford Crown Court. She was remanded in custody.

Children crawled through the waste in dirty nappies

Piled high with rubbish, this is the house of squalor where the mummified body of a four-year-old boy was found in his cot.
It is barely believable that a family in 21st century Britain could live in such horrific conditions. Almost every room was littered with plastic bags of household  rubbish, bottles, filthy nappies, newspapers, vomit and mouldy food.
In the living room it was waist-high; the kitchen was in a similar state, and even the bath had cat faeces in it.
Malnourished and neglected: This is the babygrow Hamzah was found in after he died aged 24 months
Malnourished and neglected: This is the babygrow Hamzah was found in after he died aged 24 months
Somehow jobless Amanda Hutton, 43, lived in this terrace  house in Heaton, Bradford, with her eight children.

'She’s a bitter and twisted woman and there’s something seriously wrong with her'
- Aftab Khan, Hamzah's father
The only room which was not in this truly horrific condition was Hutton’s bedroom. But for almost two years that room contained a terrible secret.
Hidden in a travel cot, beneath clothes, shoes and bedding, was the body of Hamzah Khan. The little boy had been starved to death by his cruel alcoholic and cannabis-addicted mother.
He wasted away to such an extent that when he died he was wearing baby clothes of a six to nine-month-old baby. Fed on just a banana and some milk a day, he scavenged around for scraps.
So horrid were the facts of this case that the original jury at Bradford Crown Court were discharged because one juror was overwhelmed with emotion after a few minutes.
Hutton, pictured 14 years ago, didn't report Hamzah's death as she feared she would lose her other children
Hutton, pictured 14 years ago, didn't report Hamzah's death as she feared she would lose her other children
Convicted: Hutton was 16 when she met 18-year-old Aftab Khan outside a club and became pregnant soon after
Convicted: Hutton was 16 when she met 18-year-old Aftab Khan outside a club and became pregnant soon after
Judge Roger Thomas, QC, told the trial that when police walked into the house and found the body in September 2011 they opened a ‘terrible Pandora’s box’.
The smell was gut-wrenching and dead flies were seen all over the windowsill. 
When Hutton answered the door, there were flies buzzing around her head. 
A hardened police officer who searched the house had to walk outside in revulsion.
There were five children aged between five and 13 living there and the youngest ones were crawling through the waste in dirty nappies.
Hutton told police how she had gone to the supermarket in December 2009, and received a call from her oldest son Tariq, 24, that Hamzah’s eyes were ‘rolling to the back of his head’. 
Hallway: Dr Pepper bottles, food packets, alcohol, clothes, moth-eaten toys and stains cover the floor and walls
Hallway: Dr Pepper bottles, food packets, alcohol, clothes, moth-eaten toys and stains cover the floor and walls
She returned home to find Hamzah dead. Hutton said she held her son for hours before placing him back in his travel cot.
Astonishingly she didn’t call the emergency services and carried on with her life as if nothing had happened – even continuing to claim Hamzah’s child benefit. Tariq, too, kept the secret.
Hutton spent her days drinking bottles of vodka, rarely venturing out. 
Her young children had to fend for themselves while she drank ‘more vodka than water’. 
They were told that if anyone asked, they were to say Hamzah had moved to live with relatives in Portsmouth.
As the months passed no one reported Hamzah missing or feared for his safety. 
It was as if this waif-like boy had never existed. 
Kitchen: Rubbish was piled high all over Hutton's home. Bottles of spirits cover every inch of the kitchen top
Kitchen: Rubbish was piled high all over Hutton's home. Bottles of spirits cover every inch of the kitchen top
People in the neighbourhood were oblivious to what was happening inside the house. Some had never seen Hamzah and didn’t realise some of the children existed.
But Hutton was also so cut off from relatives that her father didn’t know Hamzah had been born.
Alan Hutton, a phone installation engineer living in the Scottish Borders, said he was ashamed of his wayward daughter and they lost touch a decade ago. 
'What she has done is evil,’ he said. 
'What kind of mother starves her own child to death? Can she even be a part of the human race? He died all on his own, a painful death.  
'Social services should have taken him away. They should have intervened. There was an apathy there.
'It is better to do too much than too little. They let him down.
'She had been living like that for years, this was not something that happened overnight. That poor little boy could have been saved, but nobody did anything to help him.'
Living room: The floors were covered in rubbish and mouldy food that the children were forced to crawl through
Living room: The floors were covered in rubbish and mouldy food that the children were forced to crawl through
Mr Hutton’s marriage broke down when his daughter was a rebellious teenager who regular smoked cannabis and she was soon living independently. 
At 16, Hutton met 18-year-old Aftab Khan outside a nightclub in Bradford. She became pregnant in her teens with Tariq. 
Khan worked as a mechanic and taxi driver. Hutton briefly worked as a care assistant, but primarily she looked after her children.
The court heard she was beaten by Khan throughout the 20-year relationship. 
Her personal problems worsened dramatically a few months after Hamzah was born when Hutton’s mother Ann died from breast cancer in December 2005, leaving her heartbroken.
She was on anti-depressants for post-natal depression and turned increasingly to alcohol.
Police were regularly called to the house, but Hutton refused to make a complaint against her violent partner. She changed her mind and they finally split up in December 2008 after Khan attacked Tariq. 
Khan was later convicted of beating Hutton.
During police interviews, he told officers: 'She’s a bitter and twisted woman and there’s something seriously wrong with her. She don’t brush her teeth, she don’t clean herself, she don’t look after herself. She’s an alcoholic.'