Filth and squalor where Declan’s tiny body lay

THESE shocking images show the disgusting conditions in which the body of a young boy was found after he was killed by his drug-addict mother.

Declan Hainey was last seen alive when he was 15 months old. Eight months later his emaciated body was found by worried relatives in his mother Kimberley’s flat in Bruce Road, Paisley.

She will be sentenced today after being found guilty last month of murder.

One of the appalling images of filth and decay, which were released by the Crown Office, shows the cot where Declan’s body was found. It is surrounded by so much rubbish – clothes, plastic bags and toys strewn across the floor – that the carpet is no longer visible.

In another room, Declan’s playpen or travel cot – where Hainey had claimed she found his dead body – looks like a rubbish dump, filled with empty bottles of 3 Hammers, a strong white cider, Irn-Bru, old newspapers and crisp packets.

The rest of the room is strewn with empty bottles and cans of Tennent’s lager, Irn-Bru and Ribena, Tampax packets, ready-meal containers with bits of food in them, plastic bags, more crisp wrappers and a duvet lying on a couch in the corner.

By the time Declan’s body was found, pathologists were unable to say how he died.

Hainey denied murder, but a jury took just four hours to find her guilty.

After the verdict, Detective Inspector Maxine Martin, of Strathclyde Police, said officers could not “begin to comprehend Declan’s suffering”.

Hainey’s flat paints a vivid image of the squalor in which he spent his short life. His former bath is filled with rubbish. His pram, which has been abandoned in a corner, has a brown stain just below the seat.

There appears to be no room, amid the rubbish, for a child to learn how to walk and run, let alone play safely.

Hainey was a heroin addict on a methadone programme. The images from her flat show tin foil, cigarette papers and matches left on the sofa, in what appears to be the living-room.

There are few toys; she sold others to buy heroin. A glass and an empty Pot Noodle container are filled with cigarette butts.

The court heard Hainey drank heavily and left her son alone while she went out. She lied to health workers and her family to keep them away. Hainey’s mother, Elizabeth Rodden, and stepfather John Rodden had offered to give Declan a home, but she refused.

However, Mr and Mrs Rodden and Hainey’s aunt went to the flat. His emaciated body was found by his grandmother that day, 30 March last year.

A report on the case was commissioned by Tim Huntingford, chairman of the Renfrewshire Child Protection Committee (RCPC), on behalf of Renfrewshire Council and the NHS Greater Glasgow and Clyde Health Board.

The RCPC will consider the report this month.