Mum's blasé reaction as her secret baby found in drawer where she'd been kept for years

The child had been hid away from the world in the drawer at the family home in Chester - and was not aware of her own name, a shocked social worker told a court

A mum showed no emotion when a social worker discovered she had kept her daughter hidden in a drawer under her bed for years.

When the social worker saw the girl sitting in the drawer, she asked the mother whether that was where she kept her daughter. The mum confirmed this was the case - but showed no emotion.

A court heard this concerned the social worker who realised hers was likely to have been the only other face the child had ever seen - other than her mother's - as she had been in the drawer for three years.

The cruel mother, who cannot be named to protect the identity of her child, admitted four counts of child cruelty, reflecting her failure to seek basic medical care for the child, abandonment, malnourishment and general neglect. The parent, from Chester, was jailed earlier this week for seven years and six months.

As a result of her mother's torture, the child has never had a birthday present, a Christmas present or anything to recognise her three years of life. Yet, the motive for her mum's behaviour remains unclear.

Sentencing the woman at Chester Crown Court, Honorary Recorder of Chester Judge Steven Everett said: "The consequences for [the child] were nothing short of catastrophic - physically, psychologically and socially." He said the infant was an "intelligent little girl who is now perhaps slowly coming to life from what was almost a living death in that room".

In an interview, the woman told police she had not known she was pregnant and was "really scared" when she gave birth in March 2020. She said the baby was not kept in the drawer under the bed all the time and said the drawer was never closed, but told officers the child was "not part of the family". She told social workers she had an abusive relationship with the child's father and did not want him to find out about her.

But it meant the girl had no interaction with her siblings, and hadn't known daylight or fresh air in her first three years of life. The cruelty was only uncovered in February 2023 when the then partner of her mother heard her cry from the bedroom when he was home alone.

After he alerted Cheshire Police and social services, authorities attended the address to find the youngster with matted hair, deformities and rashes. The court also heard the woman did not seek medical assistance for the child's cleft palate and did not give her adequate food and water, feeding her milky Weetabix through a syringe.

The child's foster carer revealed that the youngster heartbreakingly wasn't aware of her own name. The statement read: "It became very apparent she did not know her own name when we called her."

A social worker said she saw the child sitting in the drawer and asked the mother whether that was where she kept her daughter. "She replied matter of factly 'yes, in the drawer'," the social worker said.

"I was shocked the mother did not show any emotion and appeared blasé about the situation. It became an overwhelming horror that I was probably the only other face (the child) had seen apart from her mother's."

Sion ap Mihangel, prosecuting, said: "She was kept in a drawer in the bedroom, not taken outside, not socialised, no interaction with anybody else." He told the court the child had a developmental age of nought to 10 months when she was first taken into hospital and was significantly malnourished and dehydrated.

Senior crown prosecutor Rachel Worthington, of CPS Mersey-Cheshire, said: "This child has never had a birthday present, a Christmas present or anything to recognise these days. She's had no interaction with any of her siblings. She hadn't known daylight or fresh air and didn't respond to her own name when she was first found."

She added: "The motive behind the mother's behaviour is still not clear, but that is not the role of the Crown Prosecution Service (CPS). Our job is to bring the person responsible to justice. That has now been done and it is the profound hope of the CPS that the victim in this case recovers sufficiently to live as full a life as possible."