House of horrors: Video shows filthy conditions neglected boy forced to live in with lesbian couple
Shocking police footage has revealed the filthy conditions a neglected four-year-old boy was forced to live in alongside his mum and her lesbian partner.
Illawarra Star
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The parents of a four-year-old boy who was found with a cocktail of prescription drugs in his system, and forced to live in a filthy home littered with garbage and cigarette butts, have escaped a full time jail sentence.
The boy’s mum, a woman in her 20s from the Illawarra, and her lesbian partner were arrested and charged by the Child Abuse Squad, after a tip-off from doctors last year, with his medical records revealing his mum and her partner had taken the little boy to their GP 35 times in 12 months and emergency department a further 31 times.
Shocking vision played to the court also revealed the filthy conditions the little boy was forced to live in, showing lighters and cigarette butts littered around the little boy’s port-a-cot, while power cables and a drill were left in a mess on the floor.
Cans and food scraps were piled on the bedhead and the floor, while several medications were stuffed in draws easily accessible by the boy.
Magistrate Clisdell sentenced them both to 15 months jail time to be served in the community by way of Intensive Corrections Order, with both of them to complete 150 hours of community service and abstain from drugs and alcohol.
According to court documents, police began investigating the women on October 10, 2018, after his mum’s partner took the boy to the hospital, telling staff he had a “reduced oral intake”, believing this is why he was “lethargic”.
The boy’s condition improved while at the hospital and he was later discharged, with a pediatrician’s appointment booked for the following morning.
But the little boy’s condition worsened overnight with court documents revealing he was in “reduced state of consciousness”, and was unable to hold his head up, walk on his own and slurred as he tried to speak.
Both the boy’s mothers denied he had access to any medications in the house beyond simple painkillers.
The boy was admitted to hospital for observation and testing, which revealed he had benzodiazepines in his system. Benzos, as they are better known, are minor tranquillisers most commonly prescribed by doctors to relieve stress and anxiety and help people sleep.
Doctors confronted the boy’s mum and her partner about the results on October 12, who said they didn’t know where or when he would have found the drugs, but that “some tablets” had arrived in the mail a few weeks earlier but were “put up high” away from the child.
Child abuse squad detectives were alerted to the case, and later that afternoon they searched the family’s home.
During the search, police found two “blister packs” of temazepam, plus another empty pack on the kitchen bench, as well as another packet with 18 tablets hidden in a high kitchen cupboard.
The little boy, who was still in hospital at the time of the search, was taken from his mum and her partner and placed in the care of Family and Community Services. While in hospital, court documents say the child made “remarkable improvements”, with his speech, and playful, active nature.
A later toxicology report revealed the little boy had a cocktail of prescription drugs in his system, including temazepam, amitriptyline — an antidepressant — and promethazine — used to treat nausea and vomiting and caffeine.
On Friday, the court heard the boy’s mother denied being neglectful of the boy, and that the high number of hospital presentations was a result of the “high level of care” she and her partner provided for the boy, given his various medical conditions.
In a letter of apology tendered to the court, the boy’s mum said “her little buddy was her best friend” and that she was genuinely remorseful of her actions.
“She recognises she’s let him down and that tears her to pieces every day,” her lawyer Daniel Pace said. “She says she’s humiliated herself, her son and her family.”
Both the woman and her partner acknowledged the house was in a disgusting state, agreeing they never should have let it get to that point.
However, Mr Pace argued the boy’s mum was the breadwinner and worked six days a week, and said more of the blame should lay with her partner, who was with the child more. Magistrate Clisdell disagreed however, saying she “should have intervened”, but she didn’t.
In handing down his sentence, Magistrate Clisdell agreed the house was in an almost “unlivable state”.
“The cigarettes on the floor, the blister packs of different drugs … to say the house was unlivable would be getting very close to the truth,” he said.
“In my view, anyone in that residence would have been concerned for the welfare of any person living there, let alone a four-year-old child.”
Magistrate Clisdell was shocked by the “extraordinary” number of times the child was taken to a doctor during the 18-month period, saying the child was “unusually sick” or had “very panicky parents”.
In sparing the pair a full time jail sentence, Magistrate Clisdell said thankfully, the child had made a full recovery, and noted the pair had taken steps to rehabilitate themselves.
“Sometimes it takes an incident like this to bring home the responsibility of being a parent,” he said.
Magistrate Clisdell also put an AVO in place against the mother on behalf of the boy for two years, and a five-year AVO against the partner. As an order of the AVO, neither the boy’s mum or her partner will not be able to contact him without the consent of Family and Community Services or the court.