Stepdad neglected four children at their squalid home, Leeds Crown Court hears

Leeds Crown Court heard that soiled nappies and rotting food was found lying around their squalid home in the Wakefield area, while the youngsters aged between one and 10 at the time, were forced to sleep on the floor because their beds were broken.

The 35-year-old mother of the children was given a six-month jail sentence, suspended for 18 months on Monday afternoon.

The stepfather was brought before Judge Neil Clark on Tuesday morning where he received the same sentence, saying he would not “differentiate” between the pair.

He was due to be sentenced at the the same time as the mother, but was ordered to be held on remand after he began shouting during Monday’s hearing.

Kept in custody overnight, the 37-year-old appeared before the judge again in HMP Leeds-issue clothing.

The court heard that health workers flagged up the filthy conditions at the home.

The pair, who cannot be named to protect the identity of the children, admitted the four counts of neglect dating between 2019 and 2020.

Prosecutor Jessica Strange said social workers visited the home when a fifth baby was born and became alarmed by the conditions.

They found dirty clothes and nappies strewn around, broken toys, rotting food on the worktops, mould in the fridge and a lack of food.

They reported the beds were damaged or unusable.

They also found the new baby’s development had been hindered, that the tot was unable to crawl and had spent too much time in a bouncer chair leaving them shaped “like a kidney bean”.

Worryingly, it was reported that two of the children had squints and needed glasses, and one needed surgery to remove an embedded earring.

Drugs were found at the house, including cannabis in a tin, and bag of heroin paraphernalia in the microwave, including used needles and spoons.

Mitigating for the male, Kate Batty said that the man was “relatively young still” and it was due to his “inadequacies” of being a parent, which he has never experienced before.

Two of the youngest children had since been adopted, and the remaining three have since gone to live with a grandparent.