Year-old twins left starving in squalor as parents watched DVDs

A DOCTOR who treated twin babies rescued from a life of "utter squalor" said they were "the worse case of malnutrition he had ever seen outside the developing world", a court heard yesterday.

A judge was told how police officers who brought five children out of the terraced house in Sheffield in June had difficulty not being 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 with state-of-the art electrical appliances - a room "equipped for adult leisure".

Yesterday, the children’s parents, David Askew and Sarah Whittaker, both 24, were each jailed for seven years after admitting five counts of cruelty.

The court heard the horror at the three-bedroom house was discovered when Whittaker phoned for an ambulance in June because one of the twins was "lifeless". Paramedics found he was skeletal and grey. The youngster was taken to hospital with his brother and put on a ventilator in intensive care.

Andrew Hatton, prosecuting, said the boy was suffering from hypothermia, hypoglycaemia (deficiency of glucose in the bloodstream) and was badly malnourished.

Mr Hatton said both twins weighed just over four kilograms (8.8lbs), less than when they were nine months old and 40 per cent of the weight expected for a one-year-old. The most seriously ill twin was passing live maggots into his nappy, which

experts said had come either from ingesting fly-ridden food or from an infestation in the heavily-soiled nappies he was found in.

Mr Hatton added: "One doctor said it was the worse case of malnutrition he had ever come across in the UK or outside of the developing world."

The other children in the house - now aged eight, four and three - were also in terrible conditions with excrement smeared on the bedroom floors, walls and windows and the children sleeping on urine soaked mattresses.

Mr Hatton said officers found the kitchen in a poor state with just a few tins of food and some milk.

They did find some powdered baby milk.

But Mr Hatton added that the living room was a "complete contrast" and was equipped for "adult leisure". Officers found a large TV, two DVD players, a Sony PlayStation and stereo as well as DVDs, video games and CDs.

Mr Hatton said relatives who babysat had found the children in terrible states and had told Whittaker to take action. Social services had never been involved with the family.

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

Neither of you is of low intelligence. Neither of you suffered from a mental illness.

Most people will simply be unable to understand how anyone can allow children to suffer in the way you did."

The court heard Askew had originally tried to distance himself from the cruelty, saying it was Whittaker’s responsibility to look after the children.

Tina Dempster, defending Whittaker, said Whittaker first became pregnant aged 15 and as well as her five children, had a number of miscarriages and terminations. When she fell pregnant with the twins, she could not cope and the house descended into chaos.

Lawyers for both defendants said they failed as parents but did not act out of sadism.