Children, aged four and six, left overnight in house while mother went drinking (From York Press)

Children, aged four and six, left overnight in house while mother, 23, went drinking

10:02am Tuesday 5th March 2013 in News By Richard Catton, richard.catton@thepress.co.uk

A MOTHER from York who left her two young children home alone while she went out drinking has been given a two-year community order and warned she “must never do it again”.

The 23-year-old from Acomb, who cannot be named for legal reasons, left her four-year-old daughter and six-year-old son upset and alone overnight in April last year.

York Crown Court heard the two were spotted at 6.50am the following morning in their school clothes, looking for their mother in the street near their home.

Nick Adlington, prosecuting, said they were taken in by a neighbour before going to school where they told the deputy headteacher they had been alone all night.

He said: “They woke up in the morning and their mother wasn’t there, but he (the son) had got them dressed and made breakfast.”

The pair were said to have asked their mother not go out the previous evening, but she went to a friend’s house, leaving the youngsters crying before taking themselves to bed.

The mother admitted neglect and the court heard the children were now the subject of a care order, though it was hoped they would eventually be reunited with their mother permanently.

Sentencing her to a two-year community order and a two-year supervision order, The Recorder of York, Judge Stephen Ashurst, acknowledged the woman had had “a lot to deal with in her short life and had suffered health problems”.

“If any good has come out of this it is that you are now receiving the help you have needed for many years,” he said.

“You have never been in trouble before and I accept you are genuinely ashamed and remorseful about leaving your children in the situation you did. It must never happen again.”