A newborn baby died after being strapped in a car seat for 15 hours while her parents went boozing – their third child to die in just two years.The ten-week-old tot – known only as ‘Child M’ – died on the third day of the couple’s holiday while left alone in a hotel room along with her twin and another child.
The “high risk” baby was abandoned in the car seat from 7pm until 10am and only fed three times in the 24 hours leading to her death. When their hotel room was searched, cops found “empty cans of lager and beer bottles”, a report published by Wigan Safeguarding Children Board found. The paper contains 11 recommendations which, if applied at the time, may have prevented the child’s “potentially predictable” death.
The baby girl was one of three of the Wigan couple’s children to die in the space of two years after two sets of twins were born “extremely prematurely” just 11 months apart. Only four of the seven children the mum gave birth to since July 2015 survived longer than 16 months. Authorities were aware both parents had problems with alcohol, with A&E staff reporting the mum to social services after turned up drunk at the hospital when she was 20 weeks pregnant with her first set of twins. Both the mum and the dad, who was previously jailed for robbery, were known to drug and alcohol services and social services. But early intervention was stood down because the mum had “minimised” her issues and refused help – despite the dad regularly vanishing on booze binges.Photo Credit: Getty
