'Where's mummy?': Babies left in filth as mother binged for 24 hours



Baby, aged three months, found crying with hunger

Boy, one, found in cot with no blanket, soaked in urine



Girl, four, had tried to feed her younger siblings

'Britain's worst mother': The 22-year-old drank a bottle of wine and snorted coke before leaving her children

A single mother left her four young children including two babies home alone while she went on a 24-hour drink and drugs binge, a court heard.

Worried neighbours contacted police after seeing the woman's eldest child, a four-year-old girl, hanging out of a window crying: 'Where's mummy?'

The 22-year-old mother drank a bottle of wine and snorted cocaine with friends after putting her daughters, aged three and four, and their brothers, aged one and three months, to bed.

But soon afterwards she left the children to fend for themselves and went out to carry on drinking at a series of house parties and bars, not returning until 10.30pm the following day.

Police alerted by neighbours found the house littered with empty beer cans

and bottles and a scene of 'filth and disorder' inside.



They discovered the one-year-old boy in a urine-soaked cot in a bedroom on his own.



His younger brother was found crying in a travel cot, with no blankets, and with a soiled nappy.



He had dried milk and sick over his clothing and was grey, docile and dehydrated.



The three-year-old girl had managed to dress herself, while her older sister, who was the most distressed, had pushed chairs up against kitchen cupboards to try to reach some food because she was so hungry.



There were also children's footprints in baby milk powder on the floor where the oldest child had tried to mix a bottle feed for her younger brother.



Yesterday the mother, who cannot be named for legal reasons, was warned she faces jail after admitting four charges of child neglect.



She sat with her head bowed throughout the hearing at Preston Crown Court which was told that all four youngsters have since been taken into care and see their mother only on supervised visits.



Judge Norman Wright granted the woman bail while reports from social services are prepared. She will be sentenced next month.



An earlier hearing was told that the incident occurred in July after the woman, from Blackburn, put her children to bed in the early evening.



She drank a bottle of wine before a group of friends and strangers arrived. They carried on drinking and began snorting cocaine.



Leaving the children asleep upstairs, the woman then left with the group for another house party before moving on to several bars in Blackburn town centre. She eventually returned the following night.



Catherine Allen, prosecuting, told the earlier hearing before magistrates in Blackburn: 'The children had been trying to gain access to the cupboards because they were hungry.



'Inside the house there were empty cans, bottles, broken furniture and the kitchen knives could have been accessed. Any of the children could have been seriously injured or worse. They had no access to food or drink.'



One neighbour said last night that the community had been left 'deeply shocked' by the case.



'It must take the worst kind of mum in the country to do that to your kids,' the neighbour added.



The case comes days after figures released in the wake of the Baby P scandal revealed a shocking rise in child neglect.

Two serious case reviews - inquiries launched following the death of a child where abuse or neglect are suspected - have been launched every week over the past six months.

