The mummified corpse of a four-year-old boy was found in a cot in his mother's bedroom almost two years after he starved to death, a jury has heard.

Hamzah Khan's body was still dressed in a babygrow when police made the discovery at his house in Bradford, West Yorkshire,

Details of how Hamzah's body was found, in September 2011, were outlined when his mother, Amanda Hutton, went on trial at Bradford crown court on Wednesday.

Hutton, 43, denies her son's manslaughter.

Opening the case for the prosecution, Paul Greaney QC told the jury Hamzah died when he was four and a half years old, on December 15 2009.

But the barrister said his remains were found 21 months later in clothing intended for a baby aged between six and nine months. He said these clothes fitted Hamzah.

"Hamzah's growth had been stunted," Greaney said. "It had been stunted because he was malnourished over a lengthy period, and that state of affairs resulted in his death.

"In short, he starved to death. How had a child starved to death in 21st-century England?"

He said: "Amanda Hutton failed to provide her child with the nourishment that he needed to survive, and in so failing, she killed him."

Hutton watched the proceedings from the dock, flanked by a female security officer.

Greaney said Hamzah's body was found after a police community support officer, Jodie Worsley, had spoken to Hutton and become concerned about the smell coming from her house.

Eventually, more police arrived and went into the property. "What they discovered disturbed even hardened officers," he said.

Greaney said the officers had been faced with squalid conditions. He told the jury: "Furthermore, within a cot in the bedroom of Amanda Hutton, a police officer named Richard Dove made a dreadful discovery.

"Within that cot, beneath other items, he found the mummified corpse of a child."

The prosecutor said Hutton was an abuser of alcohol and cannabis.

Greaney said the jury would have to consider whether Hamzah had become "a secondary and less important consideration than those addictions".

He said Hutton had worked as a care assistant in the past, and there was evidence that she had undergone some first-aid training.

Greaney told the jury he expected Hutton's defence lawyers to argue that Hamzah's malnutrition could have arisen through "some naturally occurring condition".

He said the prosecution case was that Hutton was guilty of manslaughter by gross negligence on two grounds: that she had failed to feed him adequately and failed to seek medical assistance for him.

The jury heard that Hamzah's father, Aftab Khan, was separated from Hutton and lived elsewhere.

Greaney said there was evidence Khan had been violent towards the defendant.

The jury was told Hutton had ordered pizza within hours of her son's death, and continued to claim child benefit for him.

Greaney said that in police interviews Hutton had said Hamzah became particularly unwell on 14 December 2009.

She said the next day she had gone to a supermarket to consult a pharmacist, but got a phone call asking to come home.

Greaney said: "She explained that when she returned, Hamzah was near to death. She sought to revive him but to no effect.

"She described placing Hamzah into his cot, making plain that she had treated his body with dignity; and it is right that we should observe that when Hamzah's body was found, it was found with a teddy."

Greaney said Hutton told police her life had deteriorated after her son's death, when she began to drink a bottle of vodka a day.

The prosecutor told the jury: "She made no call for assistance, for a doctor or an ambulance. What did she do? Within hours, she was ordering a pizza. So: no call for assistance but a call – or even calls ‑ for pizza.

"Moreover, she thereafter continued to claim child benefit in respect of her dead son."

Greaney said the jury would have to consider whether the matters of the pizza and the child benefit "demonstrate anything about her attitude towards Hamzah".

The case continues.