Jail for Halifax nursery boss who force-fed toddlers until they choked

Clare Cartwright, 32, was jailed for 10 months after admitting four counts of child cruelty at her Little Nippers nursery in Halifax.

Staff at the nursery described her as a “bully” who swore in front of children, Bradford Crown Court heard.

The judge was told that four children aged between one and three had been force-fed at the nursery because of Cartwright’s “impatience”.

She would hold the children’s heads against a wall and force food into their mouths before clamping their mouths shut, “even to the point of making them sick”.

She also sent children to the “naughty step” and referred to one of the children as a “t**t”, the court heard.

Prosecutor Sharon Beattie said Cartwright even held one of the toddlers under a cold tap when she refused to eat and when her grandmother picked her up and asked why she had wet hair, Cartwright said she had spilt orange juice.

Mrs Beattie said: “She picked the child up by her leg and arm then carried her to the sink where she held her face under running water. The child was hysterical.”

She added: “Cartwright said she had lost it with (the child) as she had ‘pushed every one of my buttons’.”

On another occasion a young girl broke her leg in an accident at the nursery but Cartwright dropped all the other children at school before taking the child, who was in agony, to hospital.

Mrs Beattie said one mother arriving to pick her son up from the nursery saw him choking after being overfed.

She said: “He had so much food in his mouth he was starting to choke.”

When he eventually spat the food out, Cartwright said: “You silly boy, you should have swallowed it.”

When another child became distressed when Cartwright ripped a sandwich in half and forced it into his mouth, she said: “No we are not having this, you know you have got to eat when you are here.”

She was even said to have found the whole situation “amusing”.

A parent who complained to Cartwright about her using four-letter words in front of the children, was told by the child-minder that the children should tell her off when she swore.

Mrs Beattie told the court the fact Cartwright had a blank accident book, despite their being accidents at the nursery, was indicative of the way the business was run.

Cartwright, a married mother-of-three who pleaded guilty on the day her trial was due to start in May, opened the nursery in November 2007. It was closed in October 2009 following her arrest when concerned parents and staff had spoken to police.

Sentencing Cartwright to 10 months in prison for each count to run concurrently and barring her from working with children again, Judge James Goss QC said: “You ill-treated and caused unnecessary suffering to them as a result of your impatience.

“For someone supposedly fulfilling the role of a carer, you displayed an uncaring attitude.”

The judge said Cartwright’s breach of trust of the parents who had left their children in her care was an aggravating feature of the case.

He added: “Any court must respect the serious view which society takes of the ill-treatment of very young children.”

Dapinder Singh, mitigating, said Cartwright, who is of previous good character and had undergone assessments before opening her business, had been unable to cope with the success of the nursery and had acted out of “stupidity”.

He said: “The type of offending here is one of heavy-handedness and a lack of understanding.”

Speaking after the case, Det Insp Gail Lawrie, head of Calderdale District’s “safeguarding unit”, said: “Cartwright harmed vulnerable young children while their parents were at work in the belief that their children were professionally being looked after and cared for.

“Any parent can only imagine the upset and trauma caused to these families.”