Claire Barnett sentenced to five years in prison as judge blames her ‘bad parenting’ for garden pond death

This article is more than 4 years old

This article is more than 4 years old

A woman has been jailed for five years for child cruelty after her two-year-old son drowned while she was checking Facebook on her phone.

Joshua Barnett died on 17 March last year after falling into a pond while playing in the garden at his home in Beverley, East Yorkshire.

Claire Barnett was criticised by the judge for her “bad parenting” and told she posed a danger to any child for whom she had responsibility during a hearing at Hull crown court on Friday.



Barnett, 31, was looking at her phone at the time of the boy’s death, it was revealed. She attempted to save the child but he died in hospital later the same day.

Barnett, who has since moved to Nottingham, was interviewed by police and gave officers varying accounts of what happened in the garden of her former home.

The court also heard how she had let Joshua play out in the road when she lived in Hull in August 2013. Neighbours contacted social services after he narrowly avoided being hit by a car. Barnett pleaded guilty to four counts of child cruelty.

Judge Jeremy Richardson told her: “Your son died due to your neglectful conduct. You will have to live with that for the remainder of your life. For a parent to behave as you did, repeatedly, amounts to consistently bad parenting.

“I trust that you will never be allowed to have further unsupervised contact to any child. If you should have any further children, they will almost certainly be removed from you.

“You pose very serious risks to any child for whom you might have responsibility.”