Mum of 18-month-old girl who plummeted head first from first floor window found guilty of neglect

The 18-month-old girl fractured her skull while her mother slept in Station Road, Rainham, in August last year

The single mother on trial for neglecting her young child after she fell from a first floor window has been found guilty.

The 18-month-old girl fractured her skull while her mother slept in Station Road, Rainham, in August last year, Maidstone Crown Court heard.

The 31-year-old woman - who cannot be named - had denied neglect, but admitted to police that she was asleep when the little girl fell.

The court had heard how the mum had put the child in her bed with her after her lover had left for work that morning.

The woman’s stepmother told the court she had concerns over the care of the baby and said she would often be dropped off at her home in a tired state, hungry and with matted hair and dirty fingernails.

The mother was arrested at King’s College Hospital in London while her daughter underwent emergency surgery for a blood clot on the brain.

When police searched the property after the incident, traces of amphetamines were found in the kitchen and the woman admitted that she dabbled in the drug, but denied she had taken it the night before the accident.

Shortly after 8am that day the youngster was seen spinning around as she fell head first from the open window and hit a shop awning and a pensioner on her way down.

She suffered a bleed on the brain when she fractured her skull and surgeons had to make a 7cm cut to her skull to remove a large blood clot.

Miraculously the child was transferred to Medway Maritime Hospital just four days later and has since made a full recovery.

Judge Jeremy Carey heard how the stepmother and the woman’s father would look after the baby three days a week when the mother was at work.

The stepmother said: “I was worried she didn’t like the bath, it was if she was frightened, so I tried to make bath time fun.”

“I would wash her hair as it needed washing as it was matted sometimes and I would bathe her and put her in clean clothes.”

The stepmother also admitted the woman and child had a very close relationship and that she loved her daughter very much.

The woman’s father, who also lives in Rainham, said the child would occasionally turn up at his home dirty.

Just four days before the fall she had seen a baby appear on the window ledge of the flat above the shop.

After being found guilty of the offence, Judge Carey told the woman that while on bail she would not be allowed any unsupervised contact with any child under the age of 16.

He also told her she would not be receiving a custodial sentence.