Mummified boy in cot was starved to death

The mummified corpse of a four-year-old boy was found in a cot in his mother’s bedroom almost two years after he starved to death, a jury has been told.

Hamzah Khan’s body was still dressed in a baby-gro when police made the “dreadful discovery” at his house in Bradford, West Yorkshire, a court heard.

Details of how Hamzah’s body was found in Sept 2011 were outlined when his mother Amanda Hutton went on trial at Bradford Crown Court yesterday.

Hutton, 43, denies her son’s manslaughter.

Opening the case for the prosecution, Paul Greaney told the jury Hamzah died on Dec 15, 2009, when he was four-and-a-half.

But the barrister said his remains were found 21 months later in clothing intended for a baby aged six to nine months. He said these clothes fitted him.

“Hamzah’s growth had been stunted,” Mr Greaney said. “It had been stunted because he was malnourished over a lengthy period and that state of affairs resulted in his death.

“In short, he starved to death. How had a child starved to death in 21st century England?”

He said: “Amanda Hutton failed to provide her child with the nourishment that he needed to survive and, in so failing, she killed him.”

Hutton watched the proceedings from the dock.

Mr Greaney said that Hamzah’s body was found after Jodie Worsley, a police community support officer, spoke to Hutton and was concerned about the smell coming from her house. Eventually, more police went into the property.

“What they discovered disturbed even hardened officers,” he said, adding the officers were faced with “conditions of squalor”.

The prosecutor said Hutton was an abuser of alcohol and cannabis. Mr Greaney said the jury will have to consider whether Hamzah “became a secondary and less important consideration than those addictions”.

He said the defendant worked as care assistant in the past and there was evidence she had undergone some first-aid training. He said he expects Hutton’s defence to argue Hamzah’s malnutrition could have arisen through “some naturally occurring condition”.

He said the prosecution case was that Hutton was guilty of manslaughter by gross negligence on two grounds — that she failed to feed him adequately and failed to seek medical assistance for him.

The jury heard Hamzah’s father, Aftab Khan, was separated from Hutton and lived elsewhere. Mr Greaney said there is evidence Mr Khan was violent towards the defendant.

The jury was told that Hutton ordered pizza within hours of her son’s death and continued to claim child benefit for him.

The trial continues.