A COVENTRY mother who left her two-year-old child in the house with a group of drunken rowdy youths while she went out to get more booze has been told she must try harder.
The 41-year-old from the Radford area had pleaded guilty at Warwick Crown Court to a charge of cruelty to a child by neglecting the toddler.
The woman, who cannot be named to protect the identity of her child, was given a community sentence with supervision for two years, and was ordered to take part in a women’s programme and to do 150 hours of unpaid work.
The court had heard that in March last year the woman, who was ‘struggling with an alcohol addiction,’ was out with her two-year-old child in a pushchair when she came across a group of 15-year-olds near a shop.
She agreed to buy alcohol for them knowing she should not, and invited them back to her home to drink it.
Judge Andrew Lockhart QC told her: “That led to a chain of events which has led you before me today.
“You went home and you gave those 15-year-old boys drink, and they got drunk, and you took drink as well.
“People became rowdy, and when the drink ran out you decided to get more drink for yourself and for them.
“You went out and left your precious child in the house with those young people who were drunk.
“A potentially very dangerous situation arose had a fire or something else occurred; or had they just decided to go, they could have done so. They had no duty to care for your child.
“That child was placed in a thoroughly dangerous position by your actions.
“…The most vulnerable in society must be cared for by those with responsibility for them.
“But I accept it was a single incident of short-term abandonment; and you are entitled to draw down on your good character and the fact that you have taken steps to take counselling to reduce your alcohol intake. You must try harder.”
And of the unpaid work, Judge Lockhart added: “Each day you do that work you must realise you are doing so to repay society for breaching your duty as a mother.”
