-
-
Related
A mother whose seven-year-old daughter starved to death in a house full of food has been jailed for 15 years.
Angela Gordon, 35, and her former partner Junaid Abuhamza, 31, were cleared of murder during a trial at Birmingham Crown Court last month, but convicted of the manslaughter of Khyra Ishaq.
Abuhamza was jailed indefinitely with a minimum term of 7-1/2 years, the Press Association reported.
Gordon and Abuhamza admitted child cruelty charges relating to five other children in their care and control, who were also starved and abused.
Khyra died in May 2008 after being taken to hospital from her home in Handsworth, Birmingham, in an emaciated condition. The judge said their regime of punishment was "chilling in its harshness and cruelty".
Justice Roderick Evans told them: "It is not right to say that these children suffered from neglect. Neglect is an inadequate and inappropriate description of the way they were treated.
"Rather, they were subjected to a domestic regime of punishment which was chilling in its harshness and cruelty.
"A regime introduced by you, Abuhamza, as it had its origins in your own upbringing, but a regime to which you, Gordon, became a party."
He told Gordon her cruelty was "horrific" and made worse because she was Khyra's mother.
The court heard Khyra endured a punishment regime that included standing outside in the cold or in front of a fan for long periods, having cold water poured over her and being beaten with a bamboo cane.
The judge said: "A further punishment and one which is central to this case was depriving the children of food.
"It was that deprivation of food, which must have extended over a period on months, which reduced Khyra to the skeletal condition in which we have seen her ... and so compromised her immune system that she was unable to resist infection."
"In real terms, however, she died of starvation in a house in which there was an abundance of food."
Prosecutor Timothy Raggatt told the jury the kitchen was kept locked by a bolt out of the reach of the children to prevent them helping themselves to food.
At mealtimes they were given a bowl containing carrots, beans, eggs and rice, or unsweetened porridge, to share between them.
"The essence of it was this, what they got was a single bowl of food to share between the six of them," Raggatt said.
"They didn't get the means to eat it separately. They didn't get separate meals.
"They were given a bowl of food and they, as it were, got what they could from the bowl of food.
"If a child ate too much, then they would be hit with the cane that I showed you a picture of."
