A mother who locked her eight-year-old son in the house on his own so she could go out drinking all night with her friends has been jailed.
A court heard how the youngster tried to climb out of a first floor bathroom window to get out of the property when she failed to come home the next day.
The 31-year-old woman, who cannot be named, was jailed for 27 weeks yesterday after admitting three offences of child cruelty.
Leeds Crown Court heard the boy usually lived with his father but was staying with his mother at the time of the offence. Police were contacted when the boy’s father rang his son, who told him he had been left on his own all night.
Officers went to the house, in Leeds, at 1pm on October 1 last year and found the boy in the street outside. The door to the property was locked but the living room and bath room windows were open. An open packet of tablets was on the fireplace and two bottles of alcohol were on the living room floor.
The boy told officers that he had awoken at 7am and had not eaten. He said his friend had come round to the house to play and he had used Sellotape to try to climb from the upstairs window.
The boy’s mother arrived at the house around an hour later and claimed she had made arrangement for him to be looked after. She later admitted that she had gone out with friends and left him alone. Enquiries revealed she had left her son on his own on two other occasions.
Marlon Grossman, mitigating, said the woman was embarrassed and ashamed of what she had done. He said: “This was a reckless and compulsive decision. not enough thought was put into her actions.”
Judge Roger Ibbotson told the woman: “You showed a complete disregard for his safety. You wanted to go out with friends and were more concerned about that than what would happen to him.”