Parents forced boy, 11, to live in filthy coal bunker

A mother and stepfather who forced their 11-year-old son to live in a filthy converted coal bunker are behind bars.

Bullied and constantly hungry, the traumatised child was made to live and sleep in the room described as a “cell” by social workers, and reduced to using a potty as he was locked up at night until morning, Preston Crown Court heard.

The room was described as “freezing” with no heating, a bare lightbulb, concrete walls and floor. The child was left to sleep on a dirty mattress.

He was put in the room as punishment for raiding the family’s fridge.

The room was a windowless old out-house with one exit bricked up and a new one added leading on to the lounge of the family home in Blackpool, Lancashire.

When police and social workers visited, they removed the child from the room where he had lived for a year, then aged between 11 and 12.

The parents, both in their 40s, cannot be named for legal reasons. Both have admitted a single charge of cruelty by willful neglect between Jan 2010 and Jan 2011.

Judge Norman Wright adjourned sentencing until next week as the case was so “emotionally charged”. He rejected pleas yesterday from the defendants’ lawyers to spare them jail. They were remanded in custody to face sentencing on Monday.

Jeremy Grout-Smith, prosecuting, told the court:

“The case began following concern about the boy, raised at his school in Jan 2011.”

The school reported the boy always seemed to be hungry, was disruptive and struggled in class. But when they gave him food he seemed to “calm down” and become more content.

After the school spoke to his parents, they were told he had been caught stealing food from the freezer and eating it frozen.

But when the boy was threatened with being sent home for bad behaviour, he became “hysterical” and begged: “Don’t send me home, I’m sorry, give me one more chance, I will be good.”

The family was then referred to social services who, along with a police officer and community support officer, visited the home in January last year.

Mr Grout-Smith added: “Asked to see the boy they were directed to a door in the corner of the lounge.

“When opened what they saw was an uncarpeted room, 6ft x 4ft with a single bed. The boy was asleep on a mattress. There was a bare lightbulb and no apparent heating. Officers told the boy to go back to sleep.”

Days later a social worker visited the boy at school.

Mr Grout-Smith said the child told her: “His parents were not caring about him and not liking him. He was punished and had to stay in the room for long periods of time.”

The social worker then visited the home and asked to see the boy’s room. “She described it as a cell.”

“Rubbish was on the floor and a potty half-full with urine. The bed had no sheet and there were scratch marks on the wall.

“There was no heating and the window had been boarded. No natural light or ventilation.

His parents, said Mr Grout-Smith, “did not deny locking him in the room to stop him eating large amounts of food from the kitchen”.

The boy was put into care the same day. Doctors who examined him said he was underweight and below average height for his age, and treated him for anemia.

The boy told police he lived and slept in the room and “pulled wallpaper off the walls because he had nothing else to do”. He also said the lock on the door made him “unhappy” and he had to wait until someone got up to be let out of the room in the mornings.

The mother initially denied neglect but later accepted the boy’s living conditions were inadequate and he should never have been locked in the room.

Jacob Dyer, defending the stepfather, said the unemployed man accepted he was wrong to lock the child in the room as a punishment for bad behaviour as this just made things worse.

“These were inadequate parents who were unable, because they did not have the skills or abilities, to cope,” Mr Dyer said.