A mum-of-three who callously abandoned her children to go to Spain was jailed for 12 months.

Social services asked her to return after learning that the 37-year-old had left the children, two aged under 10 and one 16-year-old, at her Cheshire home for a week.

But Liverpool Crown Court heard she refused to do so, and a woman who she had asked to care for them in her absence was subsequently found to have been investigated for child sex abuse.

The single mum, who cannot be identified to protect her children, spun a web of lies to try to cover up her behaviour - but only made her situation worse.

Judge Robert Trevor-Jones pointed out that it was not the first time she had neglected them. On a previous occasion her youngest child, then aged three, was found wandering the streets in the early hours of the morning while the other two were home alone.

And earlier this year she left her two youngest in her car while she was at a gym.

He said that the latest incident in May showed “a quite persistent failure by you to perform your parental duties and a breach of the trust the children would have had in you and you then covered it up.”

The woman had even appealed on Facebook for someone to mind her children and tried to persuade her ex-husband to lie and say he was to care for them.

The judge said: “That was an attempt to save your own bacon with no thought for the position of the children.”

He told her: “You were asked to come home at the earliest opportunity but you declined and remained until the expiry of that week displaying callous, self-centred indifference to the position of your children - a thread which runs through this case.”

He pointed out she had three months notice to make arrangements for the children and had not done so, adding: “It was not an impulsive act, it was planned.”

She pleaded guilty to two offences of child neglect and attempting to pervert the course of justice.

Zia Chaudhry, prosecuting, said that the woman went off to Spain on May 22 leaving her two youngest children with their 16-year-old brother at their home .

At school, the youngest child revealed that she had gone away and she was contacted but repeatedly refused to come back and said she was making alternative arrangements for the children.

But when she gave the details of the woman in mind it was found she was unsuitable. She had asked another woman to look after them but she had been unable to come for the first two days.

She claimed that it had been arranged that another friend was taking over their care but had changed her mind after being bereaved, and she faked email chats to back up her lies.

Mr Chaudhry said that the children were taken into care and the mum rang up “screaming and shouting ‘you are not taking my children into care’ and insisted she was unable to travel back for a variety of reasons”.

Gareth Roberts, defending, said: “She has made a massive mistake combined with an equally significant serious error of judgement... she made extremely unwise attempts to cover her tracks.

“Her problem has been trying to juggle life as a single mum with full time work in an attempt to maintain a family lifestyle. In many ways she has lived a very positive life and has been a good mum.”

The woman broke down in tears as she was jailed.