Mother Sentenced To 15 Years In Jail After Starving Son To Death

Amanda Hutton, an alcoholic Mum-of-eight, has been found guilty of the manslaughter of her four-year-old son and sentenced to 15 years in jail.

Hamzah Khan was found mummified, amid squalor at Hutton’s Bradford home in England. The little boys decomposed body was discovered in a travel cot  wearing a babygro aged 9 months, almost two years after his death in December 2009. The mother threatened her other children that if they told anyone about Khan, she would kill them.

A former care worker for the elderly, Hutton was known to police after suffering domestic abuse from estranged partner, Aftab Khan.

The 43-year-old appeared emotionless when the unanimous verdict of manslaughter by gross negligence was read out today at Bradford Crown Court.

The trial heard that the mother fed Hamzah half a banana and half a cheese and onion pastry each day. Hutton claimed her son had difficulty eating and  effectively starved himself to death.

Hamzah Khan body was found decomposed almost two years after his death, he had starved to death.

Detective Superintendent of West Yorkshire police, Lisa Griffin, led the investigation, stated that, “Ultimately the responsibility for the care and welfare of the children in that household lay very firmly with Amanda Hutton, and it was her responsibility and hers alone, to ensure that all their basic needs were met... Clearly she failed in that.”

“I can only imagine the pain and the suffering that that child endured,” she added.

Hutton had denied the charges of manslaughter throughout the two week trial, admitting only to five counts of child cruelty to her other school-age kids. These charged related to a period of almost three years, which Judge Robert Thomas described the crimes, as bad a case of unlawful killing of a child by a parent as it is possible to imagine".

“On an ever declining scale, you failed your young children, causing them to live in quite appalling conditions of squalor which understandably shocked even the most seasoned police officers who attended your home in September 2011".

The horrid image of Hutton's kitchen.

The events have raised serious concerns about social workers and health professionals that should have spotted sign prior to the little boys death. The UK Independent reports that despite multi-agency meeting and checks, nothing untoward was reported about Amanda or her kids. A visit carried out in the  9 months before Hamzah’s death described the conditions as “perfectly adequate” and that the six children were  in “good health”.

However at the time of the discovery, conditions in the family home had deteriorated severely,  officers found themselves ankle deep in fast food boxes, faeces and empty vodka bottles upon entering the property, describing it as being “breathtakingly awful”.

Hutton’s eldest son, Tariq Khan was also present in court, and during the same hearing he was handed a two year suspended jail sentence after admitting to also preventing the lawful burial of his younger brother’s corpse.