Parents jailed for keeping children in ‘utter squalor’

A DOCTOR who treated twin babies rescued from a life of “utter squalor” said they were “the worst case of malnutrition he had ever seen outside the developing world”, a court heard yesterday.

A judge was told how police officers who brought five children out of the terraced house in Sheffield in June had difficulty not being physically sick in the excrement-smeared bedrooms and kitchen.

Sheffield Crown Court heard that one of the 12-month-old twin boys was critically ill and close to death.

But officers were astonished to find a neatly-kept lounge filled with expensive electrical goods - a room “equipped for adult leisure” and littered with beer cans.

Today the children’s parents, David Askew and Sarah Whittaker, both 24, were each jailed for seven years after admitting five counts of cruelty.

The court heard the horror at the three-bedroom house was discovered when Whittaker phoned for an ambulance in June because one of the twins was “lifeless.” Paramedics found both boys were 40% of the weight expected for a one-year-old.

Police found dog and human excrement smeared in the bedroom and the children sleeping on urine-soaked mattresses

Whittaker’s defence said she had first become pregnant at 15 and that when the twins were born she could not cope and let the house descend into chaos.