I didn’t put booze first, insists mother of tragic little Hamzah

Bradford Crown Court yesterday heard Amanda Hutton deny she had killed her son Hamzah Khan through her “terrible failures” as a parent.

Hamzah’s mummified remains were found in a cot in Hutton’s bedroom at her squalid home in Bradford in September 2011 – nearly two years after his death.

Yesterday she repeatedly rejected claims the little boy died due to her neglect because she was a heavy drinker and “cared more about alcohol” than she did about her son.

Hutton, 43, was asked by Paul Greaney QC, prosecuting: “Can’t you now, as this trial is nearing its end, just accept that through your terrible failures you killed that child?” She replied: “No I didn’t.”

The prosecutor said: “This case is as simple as that.” Hutton replied: “No, it isn’t.”

Mr Greaney also asked the defendant: “You had a four-and-a-half-year-old child that fitted into a babygro for a six to nine-month-old baby, that hadn’t been eating and you didn’t seek medical attention for him.”

As he posed the question, he showed Hutton a photograph of the babygro Hamzah’s body was found in. She replied: “No I didn’t.”

Hutton told the jury Hamzah got ill on the day before he died but she thought he was “poorly” rather than seriously unwell.

Recounting the day of his death in December 2009, she said she was at a Morrisons supermarket when she received a phone call from her son, Tariq, now 24, to say the youngster’s eyes were rolling back into his head.

Hutton, who denies manslaughter, said she went home and rushed upstairs to the bedroom.

“I picked him up and checked all his pulse points and there was nothing. I tried to give him mouth-to-mouth but that wasn’t working,” she told the court.

She went on: “I picked him up from my bed and put him over my shoulder and brown vomit came out of him, from his mouth.”

Hutton said she wanted to call the police but Tariq stopped her. Asked why, she said: “I’m not sure.”

She was then asked what she did afterwards. “I stayed in my bedroom all night with him,” she said. “I held him for hours.”

Hutton told the court she began drinking heavily following her son’s death, sleeping on the sofa as she struggled to come to terms with what had happened.

“After the shock I just didn’t know what to do. It was literally like a snowball that gets bigger. It got harder every day,” she said.

Asked whether she accepted her son had died because he was malnourished, Hutton said: “Without sounding flippant, I’m not an expert. I don’t know the cause.”

She agreed she had continued to claim child benefit for Hamzah after his death but said this was because she thought questions would be asked if she stopped.

Hutton denied locking her son in a room in the dark as a punishment. She said she had always had difficulty getting him to eat but thought he would grow out of it, just like his elder brother, Qaiser, now 22.

The defendant also told the court about a catalogue of abuse she suffered at home over the course of more than 20 years.

Hutton said she started seeing Aftab Khan, Hamzah’s father, when she was about 16 or 17 years old, and he was violent towards her.

Asked by Stephen Meadowcroft QC, defending, why she stayed with Mr Khan, she said: “Because I loved him.”

Earlier, the court heard that police found Hutton’s fridge packed with out-of-date food as they searched her house in September 2011.

Mr Greaney said: “The top portion of the fridge contained only rotten food. The bottom shelf contained a mixture of ready-prepared food – ready meals – all with an expiry date of March 2011.

“All of them were five months out of date. Mould was visible on most foodstuffs and on the doors of the fridge.”

Hutton had been expected to begin her defence on Monday but, the jury was told, she was not in a fit state to do so because she had been drinking.

The trial continues.