Mother who left her four under-five children home alone to go on a 24-hour drink and drugs binge wal

[mc_squared]

Mother who left her four under-five children home alone to go on a 24-hour drink and drugs binge walks FREE

 

 

By Daily Mail Reporter

Last updated at 5:03 PM on 16th November 2009

 

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Enlarge Stevenson admitted four charges of cruelty. Her children are being cared for by their grandparents. She is allowed supervised visits

 

A young mother who abandoned her four young children to go on a 24-hour drink and drug binge avoided jail today.

Rebecca Stevenson, 22, left her two sons and two daughters, aged between three months and four years, home alone to fend for themselves.

It was with 'merciful good luck' that none of the children was seriously injured through her 'absolute dereliction' of duty, Preston Crown Court heard.

Sentencing her to a 20-week jail term, suspended for two years, Judge Norman Wright said it was 'an appalling state of affairs' that she had preferred to satisfy her own personal gratification rather than care for her children.

Child welfare campaigners reacted with disbelief after Stevenson escaped a jail sentence.

 

Claude Knight of children's charity, Kidscape, said: 'The important message should be that the safety and welfare of children must come first and that anyone who puts them at grave risk could face a custodial sentence.

 

'It is not clear how a 20 week suspended sentence will help this young woman to understand the potentially tragic consequences of this type of dereliction of duty and responsibility as a parent.

 

'She will need to attend parenting classes and will require much support if she is ever to care for her children again.'

 

Stevenson said she put her children to bed at 8.30pm one evening in July this year and proceeded to drink a bottle of wine before further indulging in cider and cocaine when friends called round to her house.

Then in 'a moment of madness' she told the court she left the children to their own devices as she went out to a house party.

She later carried on drinking throughout the day at various pubs in the town before returning home at 10.30pm the following day.

Steven Wild, prosecuting, said the children were discovered at 10am that day when the defendant's stepfather called round to the property in Abraham Street.

The eldest daughter was leaning out of the lounge window, was rain-soaked and had clearly been crying, he said.

After climbing through the window he saw Stevenson's 'hysterical' one-year-old son in his cot upstairs.

The youngster was soaked in urine as was a three-month-old boy who was also covered in sick in his cot.

An attempt had been made by the four-year-old girl to feed the baby after the children used dining room chairs to climb up to a kitchen cupboard and reach a tin of milk powder.

'There were kitchen knives and sharp objects on the sofa which were within reach of the children,' Mr Wild added.

'It is not clear how a 20 week suspended sentence will help this young woman to understand the potentially tragic consequences of this type of dereliction of duty and responsibility as a parent'

 

 

The youngsters are now in the care of their grandparents with Stevenson allowed only supervised visits.

Judge Wright told a tearful Stevenson: 'This was an appalling state of affairs. You left four children ranging from the ages of three months old to four years old to fend for themselves.

'We have all seen and been amused by Hollywood's Home Alone, of a much older child, but the consequences of children as young as these being left to fend for themselves are too dreadful to think about.

'The kitchen was a potential timebomb in terms of potential injury to children who were left unsupervised.

'They were left to fend for themselves because you had decided to go out for your own personal gratification, drinking and taking drugs.

 

'You went out and they were left alone and you should realise that with young children they come first.

'The message has to go out to other people in this predicament that if they do this there will be a custodial sentence.'

He said she had failed to communicate her difficulties to the various agencies, but it was 'merciful good luck' that no serious injuries were caused to the children.

'It is a absolute and complete dereliction of your duty as the sole carer,' the judge said.

'I, like other members of the public, will be horrified at what happened but it is right that you do not have the care of your children and if you ever have them again it will be because you have had to prove yourself over a significant amount of time that you are fit to care for them.'

The judge lifted reporting restrictions on naming the defendant in the interests of 'open justice'.

 

Home alone: The children were discovered at Stevenson's house in Blackburn

 

Stevenson pleaded guilty at an earlier hearing to four counts of child cruelty.

The judge also imposed an eight-week curfew in which she will be not be allowed to leave her home between the hours of 8pm and 6am.

Richard Bennett, defending Stevenson, said she was a 22-year-old with four young children by three different fathers who had found her life 'extremely difficult and distressful'.

He said: 'There can be no doubt that this young woman was under a great deal of stress.

'She was depressed because of the break-up of her long-term relationship with the father of the two boys.'

The two-year relationship had ended eight months before she committed the offences, he said.

In a letter to the judge, which was read out to the court, Stevenson explained that she was pregnant when she found out her partner had cheated on her.

That partner went on to marry her love rival around the time she gave birth to her youngest son, she added.

During the pregnancy she was told there was a chance the baby could be born with Down's Syndrome but that did not happen.

'Luckily all was well in the end but it had a bad effect on my mental state,' she said.

Mr Bennett continued: 'The defendant, in a moment of madness, simply walked out the front door and ended up in a drinking session while the children had happily been discovered the following morning.

'She did not arrive back on the scene until about 10.30pm the following night.'

The case comes after figures released in the wake of the Baby P scandal revealed a shocking rise in child neglect.

 

Two serious case reviews - inquiries launched following the death of a child where abuse or neglect are suspected - have been launched every week over the past six months.

 

Read more: http://www.dailymail.co.uk/news/article-1228240/Mother-abandoned-children-home-24-hour-drink-drugs-binge-walks-free.html#ixzz0X3ZEAvP0

[Guest howyousawtheworld]

Christ, I thought Kerry Katona was back in the headlines for a moment there!

[mc_squared]

Christ, I thought Kerry Katona was back in the headlines for a moment there!

 

Maybe they're related!:P

I'm amazed she wasn't invited back into the jungle along with Jordan.:rolleyes:

[nancyk58]

What a story, and poor children and what a shock it must have been for the stepfather. I fully agree with the statements below copied from the article:

 

"Claude Knight of children's charity, Kidscape, said: 'The important message should be that the safety and welfare of children must come first and that anyone who puts them at grave risk could face a custodial sentence.

 

'It is not clear how a 20 week suspended sentence will help this young woman to understand the potentially tragic consequences of this type of dereliction of duty and responsibility as a parent.

 

'She will need to attend parenting classes and will require much support if she is ever to care for her children again.' "