A Kensington woman left her three year-old toddler to fend for them self for six hours, when she went to visit her boyfriend in prison.
Ebtissam Yahya, 29, admitted one charge of child neglect when she appeared at Westminster Magistrates' Court on Tuesday, 25th August 2020.
It is an offence under section 1(1) of the Children and Young Persons Act 1933 for anyone who has attained the age of sixteen, who has responsibility for a child under that age, to assault, neglect, ill-treat, abandon or expose that child to a situation likely to cause them unnecessary suffering or injury to health.
The offence is triable either way and has a maximum penalty of an 10 years' custody and/or an unlimited fine on conviction on indictment; 6 months' custody on summary conviction.
The relevant Sentencing Guideline in this case gives a range of a community order to 8 years' custody.
Magistrates heard that a housing officer found the young child wandering around a communal area outside the family's flat on 30th December 2019.
Arif Ahmed, prosecuting, said: "A housing officer had contacted social services as he found the child wandering around in the communal area of the flats.
"The defendant stated she decided to go to the shops to prepare for a gathering she was having later that day.
"She said the child was asleep and when she was out she received a call to say the child had been found in the communal area.
"She said the child was only unattended for 15 minutes. She said when she got back the child was with the housing staff and she had never left the child alone before.
"She said it had been a big wake up call.
"CCTV was obtained from the block of flats that showed that for a period of six hours the defendant had not been in the premises and the three year-old had been left unattended."
Theo Bunce, mitigating, said: "This is totally out of character. It is essentially an error of judgement."
Quite a serious error of judgement I'd suggest - one that could have resulted in serious injury or worse to a child lacking the awareness of danger that an adult has.
Yahya was granted unconditional bail until her sentencing at the same court on 15th September 2020.
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