Parents let 'porcelain doll' girl of 3 starve to death in filthy, beetle-infested room

A girl of three died in squalor after being starved and neglected by her mother and stepfather, a court was told.

Tiffany Hirst was 'unloved, unwanted and left to die alone' in her bedroom above a pub run by the couple.

The little girl, as fragile as a 'tiny porcelain doll', was often seen by passers-by staring out of the first floor window.

She had been taken out of nursery school and kept away from other children of her age, yet tragically no one intervened to save her.

Weakened by lack of food and water, Tiffany died from pneumonia.

Yesterday, her local council began an inquiry into the tragedy – after it emerged that she had been seen by a health visitor seven months before her death.

It is not known whether the family were involved with social services, but a multi-agency investigation is underway.

Paramedics found Tiffany in a filthy bed in a beetle-infested room at the Scarbrough Arms on Addy Street, Sheffield.

The youngster had been dead for up to two days. She was shockingly underweight and her body covered in insect bites.

Her mother Sabrina Hirst, 22, and stepfather Robert Hirst, 54, were originally charged with murder.

But the Crown Prosecution Service accepted Sabrina's guilty plea to manslaughter on the grounds of 'gross negligence' and her partner's plea to a lesser charge of neglect.

The couple have also pleaded guilty to the neglect of a 12-month-old child.

Both were remanded in custody on Wednesday by Judge Alan Goldsack, QC, who adjourned the case at Sheffield Crown Court for reports.

The court was told that Tiffany's death was a result of repeated and severe malnourishment.

A post mortem found development of her bones had been abnormal, indicating malnourishment and growth happening in bursts when she had been fed.

Seven months before she died, Tiffany was seen by a health visitor and 'appeared healthy and well'.

Detectives believe the little girl had been loved as a baby and toddler, but when Robert Hirst came into her life things dramatically changed.

The Scarbrough Arms pub where the body of 3-year-old Tiffany Hirst was found

Not only was she starved of love, but the couple also denied her food and water.

Experienced police officers were shocked by the case.

Detective Inspector Steve Williams, of South Yorkshire Police, said: 'We think this neglect had been going on for months and that those last few months, weeks and days of her life she was unloved, unwanted, starved of attention and left alone to die and she would have known that.

'Children are a gift who should be cherished. Parents everywhere, those who have lost them and people unable to have them will find this treatment unbearable and unthinkable.

'She was like a tiny porcelain doll, so tiny and frail and we all wondered how this had been allowed to happen in this day and age.

'This must never happen again and if people have any concerns at all or suspicions about the welfare of a child they must call somebody – because out of every thousand calls followed up, if only one turns out to be founded and a child's life is saved it is worth it.'

The Hirsts were licensees of the Scarbrough Arms. The court heard that for more than 13 months before Tiffany's death, they were 'in a habit of leaving children locked up in residential quarters upstairs'.

When the girl died last September police found the house in a squalid condition, with live electrical wires hanging from the walls.

One room where the family dogs were kept was full of excrement and urine. The court heard the decision to accept the mother's manslaughter plea had been made because it could not be proved she knew her actions would have killed Tiffany.

But the judge said Mrs Hirst had not been able to answer a single question as to how the child died in her care.

Robert Hirst escaped with a neglect charge because he started a new job, assisting a lorry driver, a week before the death and was away 12 or 13 hours a day.

But the judge said he had breached his duty of care to check on Tiffany.

Alan Jones, chairman of the Sheffield Safeguarding Children Board, said he was 'immensely saddened' by the tragedy and a serious case review was being carried out.