Couple jailed for forcing son to live in filthy converted bunker

Bullied and constantly hungry, the traumatised boy 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 each night until morning.

The rubbish-strewn room had no heating, a bare lightbulb, and concrete walls and floor, with the youngster left to sleep on a dirty mattress with a sleeping bag for a blanket.

The couple in their 40s, who cannot be named for legal reasons, both admitted a single charge of cruelty by wilful neglect between January 2010 and January 2011 at an earlier hearing at Preston Crown Court.

Sentencing them yesterday, Judge Norman Wright told the pair: “This was a flagrant abuse of power and a gross breach of trust.”

He added: “The room has been described as a cell but it seems to me it was akin to a prison cell from a Third World country, not the home of an 11- or 12-year-old living in this century in this country.”

The boy was put in the room as punishment for raiding the family’s fridge, the couple told police after their arrest.

His room was a windowless old outhouse with one exit bricked up and a new one added leading to the lounge of the family home in Blackpool.

The youngster lived there between the ages of 11 and 12 before his school became concerned as the boy was always hungry in class. Police and social workers visited the house and he was placed in foster care.

Doctors who examined the boy said he was underweight and below average height for his age, and treated him for anaemia.

Since being placed with foster parents he has put on weight and his behaviour has improved dramatically, described as a “remarkable achievement for him”.

But the youngster will have been left traumatised and psychologically damaged by his experience, the court heard at the last hearing.

Lawyers for the defendants said the boy was “undoubtedly” a very difficult child to manage but the parents were inadequate rather than wicked.

Judge Wright said the physical effects to the boy from living in “truly appalling” conditions may have been remedied but the psychological harm “will be unknown”.

“It is bound, in my judgment, to be profound,” he said.

He said it had been submitted that the child’s mother was “subordinate” to her “dominant” partner but he ruled their culpability was equal.

“You were his mother and it seems to me that you were not someone cowered by your co-accused,” he said. “You were in a position to stand up (to him) and you did not.

“Your counsel say that you were someone who loved your son very much. If that was so, how can you behave like this?”

Speaking to ITV Granada Reports, the boy’s natural father said the child’s mother had limited his access for his son and he had been unaware of his plight.

“I feel guilty,” he said. “Guilty because I wasn’t there to prevent it.

“Conditions in prison cells are far better than the way my son had been kept.”

Detective Constable Matthew Normanton, of Blackpool’s public protection unit, said: “It is incredibly rare to find such a horrific example of neglect and what we saw was deeply upsetting, even for police officers who have been in the job for many years.”

He went on: “Once this inhumane situation came to light a multi-agency approach was put in place between the police, social services and the child protection team so that the boy was quickly removed from these horrendous conditions and this couple was brought before the courts.

“The fact that this child is now living a much better life is the best possible result - but the couple’s sentence does highlight the severity of their actions and the robust approach that we, and our partner agencies, will take to tackle child cruelty.”