Mother who left baby home to die in 27C heat with fractured skull while she ... trends now

A cannabis-smoking mother who left her baby at home to die in 27C temperatures with a fractured skull as she went shopping has been jailed.

Stacey Davis, 35, left her one-year-old son Ethan Davis alone in his cot for two hours while she ran a number of errands and visited a park near her home in Melksham, Wiltshire, in June 2018.

Ethan was trapped in a warm room in which all windows were closed and no fans were in use as temperatures soared. 

Davis, who regularly smoked cannabis around her son, then failed to check on him for at least half an hour after returning to the property. Instead, she began texting a friend, a court heard. 

When she finally did go into Ethan's room, she found him lifeless and unresponsive in his cot.

The infant was rushed to hospital on June 27, 2018, but was pronounced dead a short time later.

Davis appeared at Salisbury Crown Court to be sentenced yesterday, having earlier pleaded guilty to an offence of child cruelty. She was jailed for two years.

Simon Jones, prosecuting, told the court that a post-mortem examination revealed Ethan has suffered a significant head injury - a 15-centimetre fracture to his skull - but a cause of death remained unascertained. 

In police interview, Davis told detectives that her son had fallen out of a door and hit his head - and despite the swelling, bruising and obvious distress, she failed to take him to hospital.

Mr Jones said: 'Any reasonable parent would have noticed the distress and sought medical attention.'

Forensic investigator Nicola Anderson also identified that there were high levels of cannabis in Ethan’s hair.

She said this was consistent with Davis smoking the drug around Ethan regularly.

But Mark Ashley, representing Davis, argued that her case was a 'classic example of post-natal depression'.