Alamy/file photo
This is such a shocking story of neglect.
A 20-year-old mum has been sentenced to 15 months in prison for leaving her baby daughter home alone every day for a week while she went partying.
The woman - who has not been named for legal reasons - left the little girl in her cot while she went out drinking every day between Christmas and New Year last year.
Her neighbours heard the baby's cries and contacted the authorities.
The court was told the woman went home each day and gave the baby breakfast cereal and a microwave meal before leaving her again to party at a friend's flat.
The woman, from Brecon, Powys, admitted neglect at Merthyr Crown Court.
The court heard from Prosecutor Michael Hammett that police officers entered the house and found it cold and dark, and with mess in every room.
"The house was in a state of disarray with rubbish, dirty clothes, empty wine bottles, beer cans and dirty nappies strewn over the floors," he said.
An officer found the baby girl in a bedroom, partly covered by a blanket in her cot. She was taken to a police station where she was said to have 'grabbed' food and drink from the officers 'as if she had been starved'.
A doctor examined her and found her to have such severe nappy rash that she was bleeding.
Her mum told the police that she had returned four times to feed her daughter, but officers said the girl had been on her own for more than 24 hour when they discovered her.
The judge, John Curran, told the woman: "You may have gone back to the house on occasions but the fact is you neglected her for a very long time."
Geraint Jones, defending, said that the single mum hoped to 'rebuild her relationship with her little girl very slowly when she leaves prison'.
Passing sentence, Judge John Curran told her: "Your daughter was left in the dark and cold, she was hungry and thirsty and had not been changed for days."
The woman cried in the dock as she was sent down for 15 months.
What a shocking story.