Boy stick thin on one meal a day, court told

Hamzah Khan, who was four-and-a-half when he died, “didn’t get fed much” and was beaten and shouted at, a jury heard yesterday.

His mother, Amanda Hutton, 43, is on trial at Bradford Crown Court accused of the manslaughter of Hamzah, whose “stunted” body was found in a mummified state in a cot in his mother’s bedroom almost two years after his death in December 2009.

The prosecution claims that she failed to provide Hamzah with enough nourishment and he starved to death.

The jury has heard that Hutton ordered pizza within hours of her son’s death and continued to claim child benefit.

Yesterday, a witness, who cannot be named, described Hamzah’s physical state shortly before he died as “absolutely appalling” and “crusty and pale”.

She said: “He looked really skinny, stick thin. He didn’t get fed much.”

The witness said Hamzah only got one meal a day and had difficulty walking.

She described the terrace house in Bradford as filled with bags of mouldy rubbish and cat faeces.

“There were lots of bins bags. Lots of mould and wee and cat food.”

She described the bathroom in a similar state, with cat faeces and vomit in the bath which had not been cleaned up. She said “green stuff” came out of the bathroom tap when it was turned on.

The witness said Amanda Hutton vomited regularly and could not walk properly because of her alcohol consumption.

“She (Hutton) had a lot of alcohol and she had three bottles a day,” the witness said.

“And she smoked a lot. It was vodka, Smirnoff and something. Usually from the Co-op. She drank more vodka than water.”

The witness told the jury that laundry did not get done.

She said: “She (Hutton) couldn’t walk properly and she couldn’t be bothered either. They were just in the kitchen in bags. She said she was going to do it but she never did.”

The witness described how Hutton would tell Hamzah to “hurry up, you silly bastard”.

She said she witnessed the little boy being hit and described an incident in which she discovered Hamzah underneath an upturned drawer which was covered in blankets.

“I knew it was Hamzah because he was skinny and his baby suit,” she said.

The witness said she gave the little boy a hug.

“I didn’t squeeze him so I wouldn’t break his bones,” she said. “He was that thin.”

The witness said she did not know what happened to Hamzah after December 15, 2009.

She said: “But I saw something brown in the cot. It may have been Hamzah.”

The jury heard that after Hamzah’s death his mother had said that he had gone to live in 
Portsmouth with an uncle.

The court also heard from Hutton’s brother, Michael, who said his sister had been a cannabis user since the late 1980s.

But he said her heavy drinking started much later.

Mr Hutton said his sister was “knocked about” by her husband, Aftab Khan.

He said he would visit her 
and find her with “less and less teeth”.

Stephen Meadowcroft QC, defending Hutton, told the court Hutton’s house in 2011 was “an absolute pig-sty, filled with 
rubbish – disgusting, the state of it”.

Mr Meadowcroft asked Mr Hutton if he was turned away from that house in 2011 and he agreed that he was.

The barrister asked Mr Hutton about the state of house when he visited in 2009.

He replied: “Perfectly decent, ordinary.”

Hutton denies manslaughter. The trial continues