A NEGLECTED INFANT.

Press, Volume LVI, Issue 16947, 23 September 1920, Page 5

A NEGLECTED INFANT.

"DIABOLICAL TREATMENT."

PA3ENTS SENTENCED TO GAOL,

At the Magistrate's Court vesterdav before Mr S. E. McCarthy, S.*M., Kerl>ert Charles Ross and Catherine Annie Henrietta Ross, a young married couple, neither of whom appeared to bo over 20, were charged under section 2S of tho Infants' Protection Act with having, during the past six months, at Christchurch, wilfully neglected and exposed an illegitimate male child, Philip Sinclair Skilton, aged two years and seven months, in a manner likely to cause the child unnecessary suffering and injury to his health. Sub-Inspector Dew conducted the prosecution, and tho accused were not represented bv counsel.

1 he evidence showed that the female accused was tbo mother of the child, and the putative father had been regularly paying a maintenance order, through the Court, of 12s 6d per week in respcct of it. For about a. year after birth, the child had been boarded at licensed homes. The male accused was not the father, but he consented, after tho marriage, to the child being brought to his home. On September 14th, when Constable Packer and Nurse G'lough (inspector in the Public Health Department) visited tho R-oss's home, at Spreydon, they found the child in a neglected and poorly clad condition. It was sitting in a chair in a. backyard, and tho only clothing on it was a. shirt and vest. On account of the infant sitting all day on a hard chair the skin was worn near the buttocks, and thero was a tenderness there. Both feet were swollen with large sores. Constable Packer explained to. the mother that the child seemed to bo slowly dy' n gj and she admitted that she was unablo to give it the care that it should have. The child was then removed to the Christchurch Receiving Home. Photographs produced showed that the child was in an emaciated condition when it was removed to tho Receiving Home. Thero was a broken windbw in tho bedroom where- the infant slept. There were three other children in the family—two tho legitimate offspring of the two accused, and another illegitimate child.

'?i' • Borrie, who examined the child, said that starvation and neglect wero responsible for its condition. The defendants gave evidence. They denied that the child had been starved, and stated that it had received the same nourishment as the other children.

His Worship, in convicting tho accused, said: The treatment which has been extended to this child is diabolical. It is inhuman to the last decree. Nurse Clough said that tho child had been neglected, and tho odour from its body showed thai it had not been properly bathed. The doctor who examined the child after it -was removed to tho Receiving Home, said that there were all the appearances of its having been starved. Tho parents say it had got the same no?irishment as the other children, but when it was found that tho food did not agree with it, why was not a doctor called in? Why was the child put in the shade all day on a hard ennir, scantily clad, and why was it left in a room exposed to the' weather? I have only one course to adopt in this case, and that is to send both t>f these people to gaol. They are convicted and sentenced to three months' imprisonment.