The couple paid £1,600 a month in mortgage repayments and received £7,000 in benefits.
Child ‘discourages going to school’
Children’s Services discovered that one of the children had blonde hair only after washing it several times and all the children had rotten teeth, with one child needing general anesthesia to have 13 teeth removed. Schools in the area had extensive records of concerns about children with the youngest unable to wash or brush their teeth, while one child was unsteady on his feet and lacked social skills. Caregivers had to explain to another child what shampoo and conditioner were and how to wash. “She couldn’t read or write, she didn’t know the days of the week or the months of the year. They discouraged her from going to school saying it would make her anxious and make it too difficult for her. She looked after the younger ones,” Ms Packham said. HHJ Mooney said the pair would have been jailed for eight years after a trial and reduced their sentence by 25 per cent for early guilty pleas. “Whatever was going on in their relationship, they should have taken care of those kids,” she said. “How come you have 35 dogs, £7,000 in benefits, how is this allowed to happen?”
