A ‘despicable’ mother who battered her toddler son to death was jailed for just 11 years yesterday and could be free within seven after she avoided being tried for murder.

Rosdeep Adekoya beat three-year-old Mikaeel Kular for being sick and left him to die in agony before hiding his body in a suitcase and dumping it in woods.

She then told police the boy had wandered off, sparking a huge manhunt before she eventually led police to the body.

Guilty: Rosdeep Adekoya, 34, (left) has been jailed for 11 years for killing her son Mikaeel Kular (right), three

Investigation: Police swept the family home after finding Mikaeel's body stashed in a suitcase in a remote wood

Mikaeel’s father Zahid Saeed told the Daily Mail: ‘Her actions were despicable and she is wicked.’

But Adekoya, 34, avoided a murder trial and the possibility of a life sentence of up to 35 years after a court accepted her guilty plea to the lesser charge of culpable homicide.

The 11-year sentence means the party-mad single mother – who had frequently left her children alone to go to nightclubs and take cocaine – could be out within seven years.

It provoked a furious reaction from her neighbours, many of whom had helped scour the streets in the hope of finding Mikaeel alive after she said he had disappeared in Edinburgh last January.

Some local people claimed the decision to avoid a murder trial had been taken to protect the police and social services, whose failings were never heard in court as a result.

Social services have been widely criticised for failing Mikaeel after it emerged he was twice taken into care by social workers, but on both occasions was handed back to his neglectful and abusive mother.

Five thousand local residents have signed a petition protesting at the failure of prosecutors to pursue a murder charge against Adekoya, who had five children.

They claimed the violence to which she subjected the toddler and her failure to call an ambulance justified a murder charge.

A neighbour to Adekoya, Julie Macleod, who started the petition, said: ‘There are lot of people at fault here, social services being one of them, and they have questions to answer.

‘By not having a trial and with no one from social services in the stands, they are avoiding being scrutinised.

‘At the end of the day, the sentence is not enough. I have to go home and explain to my teenage daughter that the woman who killed the child we went out searching for day and night will only go to prison for at most 11 years.’

In Kirkcaldy, Fife, where Mikaeel’s body was found in woods behind Adekoya’s sister’s house, neighbours also expressed their outrage.

Attack: Adekoya, 34, (left) repeatedly beat Mikaeel (right) when they were on a family day out in Scotland

Trauma: Mikaeel's father Zahid Saeed leaving court after watching Adekoya admit to killing his son

One said: ‘She should definitely have been tried for murder. It is just disgusting.’ Their anger deepened when Adekoya’s defence QC Brian McConnachie dismissed those who had signed the petition as ‘an ill-informed mob’.

Mr McConnachie told the High Court in Edinburgh: ‘No sentence will be deemed sufficient by what appears to be an ill-informed mob who are no doubt at this moment waiting impatiently to express their outrage and indignation.’

Mikaeel and his twin sister were twice taken into foster care by social workers in Fife, but were handed back to their mother. Authorities were repeatedly warned about her neglect, including that she was leaving them home alone while she partied for days at a time with drug dealers.

It also emerged that when she moved to Edinburgh from Kirkcaldy last summer she was allowed to slip off the radar as social workers and police in the city were not informed.

Officials in Fife neglected to tell those in Edinburgh and stopped monitoring the family in December 2013, weeks before the boy’s death.

An independent significant-case review is to be held.

Police Scotland Assistant Chief Constable Malcolm Graham thanked the community for searching for Mikaeel

Jailed: Adekoya pleaded guilty to culpable homicide for the attack which took place during a family holiday

A social services whistleblower told the Mail that Mikaeel would still be alive but for the incompetence of social workers.

The whistleblower said: ‘Rosie couldn’t cope with looking after them. In 2012 she had taken an overdose. There were constant cries for help from her like this.

‘They were not properly monitored after they moved. There was no communication, so Edinburgh did not even have a file on them when Mikaeel went missing.’

The court previously heard that Mikaeel died on the night of Tuesday, January 14, from injuries inflicted three days earlier when Adekoya battered him for being unwell.

She lost her temper when he was repeatedly sick following a trip to a Nando’s restaurant in Edinburgh. She smacked him and struck him on the body and head with her fist, the court heard.

There are a lot of people at fault here... At the end of the day, the sentence is not enough

When Mikaeel was sick for a third time, she dragged him to the shower by his arms and beat him heavily on his back as he lay over the bath edge. Over the next few days Mikaeel’s condition worsened and he was kept off nursery. He was assaulted again on the Monday after being sick and became listless.

On the Wednesday morning she found his body on the floor and instead of calling 999, took his twin sister to nursery before taking his body in a suitcase in the boot of her car to Kirkcaldy, 25 miles away. She hid Mikaeel’s body in the woods and then fabricated a story suggesting he had been abducted.

Her claims sparked a huge two-day search in freezing weather. But following inconsistencies in her account of events she eventually led police to the woods.

Mikaeel had more than 40 separate injuries to his body.

Reports prepared for the case found that Adekoya had suffered from depression for some time, particularly in the last few months before Mikaeel’s death, as she found herself ‘overwhelmed’ by her circumstances.

Her internet search history in the weeks before his death had included: ‘I find it hard to love my son’, ‘I love all of my children except one’, ‘Why am I so aggressive with my son’ and ‘Get rid of bruises’.

Horrific: She smacked the three-year-old (right) and punched him with a clenched fist, the court heard

Hidden: She hid Mikaeels' body in a case, drove it 25 miles to Fife (pictured), and reported him missing to police

Judge Lord Glennie, passing sentence, said that while battering her son to death was cruel and inexcusable, it was clear Adekoya did not intend to kill him and was ‘not even aware that death was a possibility until it happened’.

John Dunn, Procurator Fiscal for the East of Scotland, said: ‘There can be few crimes more shocking than a parent killing their child.

‘Having considered all the evidence in the case, including that of expert pathologists, Crown Counsel concluded that pleas of guilty to charges of culpable homicide and attempting to defeat the ends of justice were appropriate.’

Father who saw his son just three times

MIkaeel’s father was criticised in court yesterday as it was revealed he had only seen his son three times during the boy’s lifetime.

Zahid Saeed, a 30-year-old chef, had said that Rosdeep Adekoya should ‘suffer every day’ after what she had done.

Mr Saeed, from Fife, told the Mail the decision to allow Adekoya to plead guilty to the lesser charge of culpable homicide was a disgrace. He said it was an ‘insult’ to his son that his former partner was not tried for murder.

But the court heard that Mikaeel’s father had seen him and his twin sister only three times and had never sent them a birthday card.

This was despite Mr Saeed promising Adekoya he would be there for the family, emotionally and financially, to persuade her not to abort the pregnancy after she discovered she was expecting twins.

The hearing was told Mr Saeed had given a victim impact statement to the court, but defence QC Brian McConnachie urged the judge, Lord Glennie, not to consider it.

Few crimes are more shocking

Mr McConnachie said that the statement contained inaccuracies and that Mr Saeed didn’t have much of a role in bringing up Mikaeel, seeing the twins a total of only three times.

He added: ‘Mr Saeed has seen fit to express his views in the media about what should happen to Mrs Adekoya.

‘There is a fiction in the mind of Mr Saeed. His contact with the twins was, to be generous to him, minimal.

‘Mr Saeed never sent them a birthday card and never supported them financially.’

Mr McConnachie said the relationship between Mr Saeed and Adekoya was fraught with difficulties and, looking back, was destined for failure from the start.

When they started dating after Adekoya split from her husband, Mr Saeed was in a relationship with a woman who was pregnant by him. As a result, the relationship was disapproved of by Adekoya’s family and she became estranged from them.