Home alone death mother jailed

A mother who left her 21-month-old daughter at home alone where she choked to death after drinking a bottle of the sex stimulant amyl nitrate was jailed yesterday for 15 months.

Newcastle Crown Court had been told that the 25-year-old woman, from Herrington Burn, Sunderland, left the child with her six-year-old sister when she went to a pub on the understanding a teenager neighbour would check on them. The sisters found the bottle in the kitchen and the toddler collapsed after drinking it.

The mother, who was convicted of child cruelty, wept as Judge Brian Capstick told her: "It was not a case of causing deliberate and intentional harm ... I accept your feelings of remorse."