Mum who left daughter alone and jetted off for six-weeks with toy boy is spared jail

The woman walked out, leaving her 14-year-old daughter £100 to live on and was found guilty of neglect last month after a two day trial.

Magistrates reached their verdict after hearing that the teenager had entered an illicit sexual relationship with a boy which was condoned by the mother.

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They sentenced her to 13 weeks' custody today, suspended for 18 months and ordered that she do 130 hours unpaid work and pay £450 costs.

The sentenced followed a plea from the woman's solicitor who ruled out jail because it could give her daughter, who had testified against her, a guilt complex.

Michael Davies, defending, told the court today: "Although her daughter had to give evidence it was not the case that she was cross examined in great detail.

"This is not a case of a parent walking out of her home and leaving a child of five or six or something like that."

He said that jailing the mother could leave her daughter "with a sense of guilt on the basis that it may be her evidence that had put her mother in custody".

During the trial the middle-aged mother had belatedly admitted she was wrong to leave her daughter home alone.

She also acknowledged that she knew of the under-age sexual relationship her daughter had formed and allowed it to continue.

She had flown off abroad in April last year and returned in June - six weeks later.

Her daughter was left alone for two days until the situation was discovered by the social services who then took action.

The girl, who is now aged 16, was put into her father's custody and now lives with him permanently.

The woman, who cannot be named for legal reasons, was contacted while she was abroad but failed to return when she learned her daughter was in the custody of her ex-husband.

She was interviewed by police within three days of returning to the UK and was later arrested and charged.

During her defence in court she claimed that she had arranged for a neighbour and her ex-husband to look after her daughter while she was away.

But the court heard that neither person had known of the arrangement.

She also claimed that her visit abroad had been to arrange a visa for her toy boy.

She claimed that that would have enabled him to come to the UK to live and work and would have improved the family's financial fortunes and constant struggle to make ends meet.

Passing sentence today Michael Davies, chairman of the magistrates, warned the woman that the seriousness of her actions had "passed the threshold for custody".

He said it was "very important" that she understood that it was her own negligence that had put her in the position in which she found herself.

Although the situation had quickly resolved itself after she had left the country, her daughter had been left at risk.

"We found that she had been neglected in that she had entered into a sexual relationship condoned by the mother," Mr Davies said.

"Although more serious harm did not befall her this was more due to chance and the vigilance of the social services."