The daughter of a mother who kept three of her stillborn baby daughters in a wardrobe and another in a bag beside her bed for 20 years, has spoken about the dreadful conditions she faced growing up.
Joanne Lee, now 47, lived in several properties including a house in Liverpool with her mother, Bernadette Quirk, and little brother Chris and sister Cath, where maggots, dog faeces and piles of rubbish were strewn across the family home.
Bernadette, who died aged 64 in February, was handed a two-year community order after admitting four counts of concealing a birth after her dead children were found by her daughters and reported to police.
The babies, born between 1985 and 1995 and who each have a different father, are thought to have been born after Bernadette started drinking and having casual sex when her marriage broke down in the 1980s.
Mother Bernadette Quirk (right) pictured with her daughter Joanne and son Christopher
Ms Lee said animal faeces and maggots were scattered throughout the homes she lived in with her mother, and that there were years old nappies squished into the carpet
Bernadette, who died in April aged 64, kept four dead babies in her house for more than 20 years
Ms Lee told The Sun there was animal faeces scattered throughout the house along with swarms of maggots, bin bags piled from floor to ceiling and years old nappies squished into the carpet.
'The washing machine broke and the clothes in there were left for years and years,', she said describing the home situation. 'You couldn't determine the colour of the kitchen floor.
'The bathroom was out of use because of the bin bags in there from floor to ceiling. Nappies of my brother's had been in there for years.
'It's something you couldn't possibly imagine. I can remember another time me and my sister were carrying a mattress out and there were maggots dropping off it.'.
Ms Lee was 26 in May 1998 when her sister Cath, then 16, told her that Quirk had put the remains of a baby in the wardrobe.
Without telling authorities, she then helped her mother bury the baby in the family
