Mother jailed for using boy, 11, as slave

A young mother whose “house of dread” turned a friend’s once-happy son into a bruised and frightened slave, was jailed for 15 months today.

While she doted on her own children, he suffered a Cinderella existence with regular beatings, cold baths and a ban on using the toilet.

Almost every evening the 11-year-old, who had been sent to Britain for a better education, spent hours doing chores.

The youngster rarely got to bed before 2am and often fell asleep at school, London’s Southwark Crown Court was told.

His year-long ordeal finally came to an end after he was forced to eat mouldy curry.

The next day he fell ill during a class with acute stomach pains and was taken to hospital.

As soon as doctors heard what had happened and saw his many bruises, social services were called in.

Passing sentence Judge Paul Dodgson told 29-year-old Shajna Begum, who admitted one count of cruelty between May 1 2000 and May 10 last year, it was clear she had been consumed by resentment at having to look after the son of her husband’s friends with little or no say in the matter.

But that did not excuse her conduct.

She remained emotionless as he went on: “One can only imagine the misery he must have suffered ... he had no one to turn to.

“And when he cried, as he was bound to do, you ridiculed him saying ’Have you lost your mummy?’

“Children are precious. They rely on those supposed to care for them to show them love and the proper way to live. You showed him nothing but resentment.”

The judge said her home in Stepney, east London, “should have been a safe place, a refuge from the troubles of the world.

“But for him it was a place he came to dread, every night returning to a house where he was ill-treated.”

Although he had long since recovered from his physical injuries, “one can only guess at the damage you have done to him.

“We will only know in years to come whether your treatment has irreparably damaged that young boy.

“I accept you are a good mother to your own children, but in some ways that only highlights the ill-treatment you dispensed to that boy, who also needed your love.”

He added that while a prison sentence would “severely affect” her own children, a message had to be sent out to others tempted to behave as she had that they would not escape punishment if they did.

The child is now in care.