[Enid]

The mother and stepfather of an eight-year-old girl who accidentally hanged herself in her "revolting and squalid" bedroom have been jailed for child cruelty.

Susan and Simon Moody locked Charlotte Avenall, who had a mental age of three, in her faeces-covered room for 12 hours a night and left her to use a chest of drawers as a toilet.

She was found dead on her knees with a cord tied round her neck and her face against a radiator at her home in Mansfield, Nottinghamshire, last September.

Yesterday, Susan and Simon Moody were both sentenced to 12 months in prison after admitting child cruelty.

A serious case review was started by Nottinghamshire county council after it emerged that social workers had been monitoring the family but had not seen the girl for a month before she died.

Nottingham crown court heard that Charlotte was born with a severe brain defect and her family was referred for specialist help in 2006.

In March last year, she was withdrawn from school after teachers reported that she regularly arrived with excrement on her hands and was inappropriately dressed for the weather conditions.

Social workers saw Charlotte in June but when nobody was at home for a planned visit in August, there was no follow-up appointment made. It was at this time the neglect started, it was said.

With heart-rending evidence the court heard that Charlotte's lifeless body was discovered clothed in her filthy pyjamas. The walls of her room were covered with her excrement.

A postmortem found her scalp was riddled with head lice and her body dehydrated.

William Harbage QC, prosecuting, said: "It's beyond the comprehension of any parent, indeed any normal person, how a mother or father could allow a child to spend a single night in that room."

He described the rest of the house as a "little bit grubby" in contrast to Charlotte's "revolting and squalid" bedroom.

During sentencing Judge Butler said: "It's quite plain that the death of Charlotte was a tragic but preventable accident. All it would have taken to keep her safe was for somebody to go into that room and see how it was. Instead, she was left in a foul and filthy mess for four weeks."

http://www.guardian.co.uk/uk/2010/ap...-child-cruelty

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12 months.... 12 ****ING MONTHS. They got off incredibly lightly I think...

[Tom4784]

They should have got way longer, it's disgusting that they only got 12 months.

[WOMBAI]

It defies comprehension that there was not a follow-up visit - with the family's history! Noone being at home for a planned visit should of acted as a warning sign to social workers - that an urgent follow-up visit was imperative!