Social services were warned THREE TIMES about five-year-old boy ‘locked in a cupboard with sellotape’
Boy was abandoned for 10 hours while his family went on a trip to the seaside
A MOTHER left her five-year-old son naked and locked in a cupboard while she went on a family day out with his older sisters, a court has heard.
The little boy was locked in the cupboard, sealed with Sellotape, for more than 10 hours while the rest of his family went on a trip to the seaside in Blackpool, more than an hour away.
The alleged cruelty the boy faced in his own home has been laid bare in the trial with his 10-year-old sister telling the jury her little brother was abandoned with chocolate, sweets, lemonade and water from 11am to 9.30pm – it was dark when the family returned home, to Bradford, West Yorks.
His mother’s female friend had also gone to Blackpool in the same car and it was she who regularly sealed the boy naked in the cupboard and would hit him with a metal pole and stiletto shoe.
The trial has this week heard that the case was referred to Social Services up to three times while he was at his Bradford nursery school.
The little boy had 15 separate injuries recorded in the school's incident log between September 2012 and June 2013, the court was told.
His mother, 40, and her friend, aged 29, deny 21 months of cruelty and neglect against the child, who cannot be identified for legal reasons.
Bradford Crown Court heard the single mother lived with the victim and his sisters, aged six and ten in a three-bedroom house. Her female friend was a regular visitor.
The older sister told the jury via video link that the three children shared a king sized bed and the empty cupboard was in the same room.
The young girl said: “Everytime [mum’s friend] came to the house my brother was put in the cupboard.”
He would be Sellotaped inside when they all popped out to the shops. She said she was “scared” for him when they went to Blackpool.
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She said: “First she told him to take his clothes off and then she put him in the cupboard.”
On another occasion after school the children were getting ready to go to mosque when the friend attacked the boy with a high heeled shoe.
His sister described their mother’s friend going to buy glue from the shop to stick the wound together, saying: “He got a cut on his head, which started bleeding. The blood stopped when they put Superglue on it.
The boy was also struck with a metal pole around the head, back, arms and legs. The woman wrapped tissue on one end, where she placed her hand, and then hit him up to ten times, cutting open his chin.
The women tried to patch it up with a sticking plaster but it continued to bleed and they had to take him to Bradford Royal Infirmary, where he received stitches on April 27, 2014.
His mother was persuaded by her friend to tell doctors that her son had been running around playing aeroplanes and had cut himself on a clothes hanger.
The friend had begged her “don’t get me in trouble.”
But medics suspected injuries on his back where not an accident and both women were arrested.
Clutching a soft toy and wearing her hair in pig tails, his six-year-old sister, told the jury that only her brother was mistreated by her mother’s friend.
The little girl said: “She was angry because he messes about.
“She whacked and whacked and whacked him – he was crying.”
The six-year-old said her mother was watching from outside the room and asked her friend to “stop it”, but she wouldn’t listen.
Both women gave no comment in interviews when questioned by the police.
The jury will hear from staff at the boy’s school who allegedly noticed his injuries.
All the children are now living at their grandparents’ home.
The boy’s mother denies two offences of child cruelty, between August, 2012, and April, 2014.
Her friend pleads not guilty to two similar charges of child cruelty and two allegations of unlawfully wounding the child.
The trial continues.