‘Lazy’ daughter left her ‘skeletal’ mother in poo-stained jumper for a year
She would have died if a neighbour didn't hear screams.
A woman has been jailed after leaving her own mother wearing a poo-stained jumper on a urine-soaked chair she’d been sat on for three months.
Natasha Pammant’s 58-year-old mum would have died if a worried neighbour hadn’t call social services after hearing screams, Leeds Crown Court heard.
The unnamed woman’s ‘skeletal leg’ and ‘swollen ankle and foot’ were visible when the social worker peered through a window of the house she shared with Pammant, 24.
Upon stepping inside, the social worker was greeted by a stench that ‘hit her like a sledgehammer’.
Prosecutor Catherine Silverton told the court: ‘There was a large amount of flies and fly papers full of flies hanging around the property.
‘She [the woman] was found slumped in a chair. There was faeces and stains on her jumper and the chair was soaked in urine. She had been sitting there for three months.
‘Paramedics had to shower her to get her off the seat before moving her to the ambulance.
‘The house smelt so bad those going in found it difficult to breathe. The woman had been wearing the same jumper for a year.’
She asked paramedics for food as soon as they appeared on the scene.
Rubbish covered every surface, there was faeces under the woman’s toenails, and she had a large, potentially fatal, pressure ulcer ‘down to the bone’.
Ms Silverton said: ‘They were consistent with having four months of little or no care.
‘The impact would have been fatal if the neighbours did not contact social services.
‘She said the defendants had thrown away her sofa, leading her to go in the chair.
‘She said she gave them her bank card for money but they left her for days. She said she asked Ms Pammant to clean her for three days prior to police arriving.’
The woman suffered from a variety of mental and physical health difficulties, including asthma, COPD, depression, anxiety, self-neglect and malnutrition, the court heard.
Pammant, of Cartmell Drive, Halton, ‘accepted the state of the house was disgusting’ and she should have called an ambulance.
But she claimed ‘her mum did not want medical attention’, Ms Silverton told the court.
Her partner Liam Leach, 26, of South Farm Road in Gipton, ‘blamed the council and doctors for the situation of the woman and described Ms Pammant as lazy’.
The prosecutor added: ‘A friend of the complainant said she used to visit up until a year before police arrived.
‘She said Ms Pammant used to make her mum wait until 6pm for food and she didn’t want to care for her, but did it for the money.’
In her interview, Pammant claimed ‘95% of the time it was Liam Leach who took her mother to the commode’.
Both Pammant and Leach went on to plead guilty to a charge of cruelty against a person in their care, alongside a second offence.
Mitigating for Pammant, Kristian Cavanagh told the court: ‘This is a defendant who has struggled with her own adequacy as a result of her poor upbringing.
‘Of course, that inadequacy and lack of maturity – she was 22 at the time of the offending – unites both cases and is an issue in the case.
‘She was bullied at school because of her own lack of cleanliness and she suffered as a consequence of that.
‘There was a lack of emotional support from her mum.’
Catherine Duffy, for Leach, who now lives alone and has his own ‘significant vulnerabilities’, said: ‘He is very keen to show the probation service the progress he has made in the garden and how he had managed to keep the house clean and tidy.’
Ms Duffy also told the court that Leach’s grandmother died on the morning of his sentencing on Friday.
She said: ‘It is not a case where he had responsibility for the woman. This case is a tragic and serious case.’
Recorder Alex Menary jailed both Pammant and Leach for 30 months.
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