NEWISSUES
Prosecutors have slammed a mum's “terrible decision” to leave her 10-week-old baby home alone while she went to work as a nurse.
Ruth Auta, 28, left her two-and-a-half month son Joshua unattended at her home in Bolton, Greater Manchester, to work an eight-hour shift at Royal Bolton Hospital. She left the nurses' accommodation and travelled to work at around 6.30am, and returned later to find her son was no longer breathing.
She called paramedics, but they weren't able to resuscitate the tot, who was pronounced dead at the scene, with police later arriving to take her statement. But she initially lied to officers, telling them she had collected Joshua from a childminder before returning home, feeding him, and putting him to bed in his cot.
Bolton Crown Court heard that Auta was captured on CCTV leaving her accommodation on the morning of December 20, 2022, and returning eight hours later. The Manchester Evening News reported that her childminder told officers she had not seen baby Joshua for several days.
Experts said during proceedings that they could not determine the cause of the 10-week-old's death, adding he was a healthy baby in all respects. The tot may have overheated due to several layers of clothing and bedding in which he was wrapped, they added, but the experts were unable to rule out any additional causes of death.
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Auta was charged with cruelty to a child and entered a guilty plea at Manchester magistrates' court on May 24. She was arrested not long later on June 6 while attempting to board a flight to Nigeria, having bought a one-way ticket to the African nation. She was sentenced at Bolton Crown Court to three years behind bars.
Culled from The Mirror
