Teenage mother who stubbed out cigarette on her baby daughter's back because she was 'stressed out' is jailed



A teenage mother who repeatedly stubbed a cigarette out on her 15-month-old daughter's back because she was 'stressed out' by the infant crying was jailed for nine months yesterday.



Charlotte Sutton, 19, burned the child's skin three times - scarring her for life - when the toddler started to cry, a court heard.

The three cigarette burns on the back of the young girl caused by her mother, Charlotte Sutton

The 14-stone teenager shrugged her shoulders as she was sent to a young offender's institution by a judge yesterday.



She had earlier chain-smoked ten cigarettes in ten minutes outside court as she awaited her fate.

Hereford Crown Court heard the alarm was raised by the child's paternal grandmother who had spotted the burns whilst changing the child's nappy and called social workers, who tipped off police.

Charlotte Sutton, 18, smokes a cigarette outside Hereford Crown Court yesterday

Pauline Eaton told a jury that the baby resulted from a relationship between Sutton and her 24-year-old son Carl three years ago.

Mrs Eaton and her husband Joe had looked after their granddaughter on several occasions in the past because Sutton claimed she was tired and could not cope.



They had collected the child from Sutton at a pre-arranged rendezvous point in Worcester shortly before discovering the burn marks on her back, the court heard.

Sutton told police that the tip of her cigarette had accidentally fallen down the back of the child's clothing while she was talking to friends outside a McDonald's restaurant.

She admitted her daughter had 'temper tantrums' but said she was able to cope and would never have stubbed a lit cigarette out on her.

But a consultant paediatrician who examined the child shortly after the incident in May last year said it was 'highly unlikely' that the burn marks had been caused accidentally by contact with hot ash.

A jury took just an hour to find Sutton, of Warndon, Worcester, guilty of child neglect after a two-day trial at Worcester Crown Court last month.

Several members of the jury gasped in horror and two even broke down in tears when they were shown pictures of the little girl's injuries.

The trial heard Sutton had told a social worker she knew of other young mothers who stubbed out cigarettes on their children to keep them quiet, but refused to name names.



The defendant later denied the claims and said the social worker had 'invented' the conversation.

Sentencing her yesterday, Judge John Cavell told her: 'You quite deliberately applied a lighted cigarette to a 15-month-old child.

'The only sentence this court can pass is a prison or custodial sentence.'

The child is now being cared for by her grandparents.