some pople are so horrible...

Are These Britain's Cruellest Parents?


A couple who lived it up while their five children were left to starve in bedrooms smeared with excrement are beginning a jail sentence.

A doctor who treated David Askew and Sarah Whittaker's twin babies told a court that they had the worse case of malnutrition he had ever seen outside the developing world.

The judge - who sentenced the pair to seven years each - heard how police officers who brought the children out of the terraced house in Sheffield felt physically sick in the excrement-smeared bedrooms and kitchen.

Sheffield Crown Court heard that one of the 12-month-old twin boys was critically ill and close to death. The other was also seriously ill.

But officers were astonished to find a neatly-kept lounge, filled with state-of-the-art electrical appliances - a room "equipped for adult leisure".

Askew and Whittaker, both 24, admitted five counts of cruelty.

The court heard that the horror at the three-bedroom house was discovered in June when Whittaker phoned for an ambulance because one of the twins was "lifeless".

Paramedics found he was skeletal and grey. The youngster was taken to hospital with his brother, where he was put on a ventilator in the intensive care unit.

Andrew Hatton, prosecuting, said the boy was suffering from hypothermia and hypoglycaemia (deficiency of glucose in the bloodstream), and was badly malnourished. He said both twins were just 40 per cent of the weight expected for their age.

The other children in the house - now aged eight, four and three - were also living in terrible conditions.

Police found dog and human excrement smeared on the bedroom floors, walls and windows. The children were sleeping on urine-soaked mattresses.

The three-year-old boy seemed to be locked in his room. The officers found him huddled in a corner wearing soiled underpants. His elder sisters were in a similar state, the court heard.

Mr Hatton said the officers found the kitchen in a poor state with a food cupboard containing just a tin of mushy peas, baked beans and corned beef.

But Mr Hatton told the judge that the living room was a "complete contrast'' to the squalor in which the children lived. The officers found a large TV, two DVD players, a Sony PlayStation and a stereo, as well as 80 pre-recorded DVDs, 14 video games and 100 CDs.

Social services had never been involved with the family.

Mr Hatton said the eldest child seemed to have shouldered some of the responsibility for looking after her siblings, including making up baby milk to feed the twins. It was she who alerted her mother to the serious illness of her brother in June.

Sentencing the pair, the Recorder of Sheffield, Alan Goldsack, said: "The reality is that behind the closed doors of your home your children were being slowly starved to death.

"I recall very few (cases) where parents have treated their own children with such callous disregard for their well-being over such a prolonged period of time."

All the children are now in local authority care. The court heard that all five were now thriving, although one of the twins may have permanent problems with his sight and hearing.

very very sad - also heard one of the babies had MAGGOTS in his nappy

Good grief! That's pretty nearly unbelievable!

Snorri

Yeah I read about them in the paper
They are just so sick its hard to imagine how anyone could do that to a child or anything alive
I hope they suffer in jail

Can you believe they only got 7 years each though!!!

And did you see on the news..the other rooms in the house were well kept...TV's ,PC's and good furniture etc.
7 years is a joke...those poor little children.They should both be neutered to stop them having any more
Archer

I read about that yesterday very sad

That is absolutely appauling
How come nobody new about these children, family, neighbours teaches etc.
It makes my blood boil how many times things like this happen.
The Law stinks

Mitch

that is disgusting, they deserve to rot in a cell as they had left their kids to, let me at them for an hour !!!

i saw it on the news.... I can't believe these thing still happen and no one noticed !!!!!!!!!!!