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Daily Mirror
Daily Mirror
National
Milo Boyd

Inside horror home where killer mum kicked son from bed to have sex with strangers

Fetid bedclothes, piled high rubbish and make-shift drugs paraphernalia are some of the bleak features of a horror home where a young boy was left to die.

Laura Heath would kick her son out of the bed and make him sleep on the sofa so she could romp with strangers for cash to feed her heroin habit.

The evil mum admitted child cruelty and was convicted of gross negligence manslaughter last week after jurors heard how Hakeem Hussain was found dead in the back garden in Nechells, Birmingham.

Heath had smoked heroin the night before.

The seven-year-old's death was the result of her "catastrophic and deplorable" parenting, a court was told, and that Heath's life had "entered a drug-fuelled downward spiral into squalor, chaos and tragedy".

Photos released during the course of the trial show the miserable home that poor Hakeem was forced to live in in the months leading up to his death.

Images of the home show the miserable state of one of the bedrooms (West Midlands Police)

One image shows the room where Heath would bring her clients to have sex, leaving Hakeem to sleep on the sofa.

The bed has been stripped of its sheets and has a singular roll of kitchen toll sitting in the corner, while bunched up, dirty clothes lie on the floorboards.

In another photo the miserable state of the kitchen, which is has rubbish and dirty dishes piled high on every service.

Sacks of trash hang off the cabinets above a floor encrusted with filth.

Rubbish was piled high on the surfaces in Laura Heath's home (West Midlands Police / SWNS)

There doesn't seem to be a single clean spot for the young boy to sit, sleep or play.

Every surface, sofa and bed is either filthy to the point of being unfit for human contact, or buried in so many pieces of discarded clothes and rubbish it's impossible to use.

Photos also show how the 40-year-old mum had used her son's asthma inhalers to craft a pipe through which she smoked class A drugs.

The living room of Laura Heath's house where Hakeem lived (birminghammail.co.uk)

In the months before he died Hakeem missed weeks and weeks of school, meaning he was left to live in the bleak house while his mother fed her out-of-control addiction.

Prosecutor Jonas Hankin QC said: "At Long Acre there was no bed for Hakeem. The bed was put over sex work, why? To raise money, what for? Her drug addiction.

"Another example of where her priorities lay. She devoted her life not to her child but to sourcing, funding and taking drugs."

A trial at Coventry Crown Court was told a school nurse had warned at a child protection conference that Hakeem "could die at the weekend" just two days before his death in the early hours of Sunday November 26, 2017.

Hakeem, who had been admitted to hospital due to asthma three times in the previous two years, is believed to have gone outside on his own as Heath deliberately "prioritised" her addiction to heroin and crack cocaine, leaving him without an inhaler.

Hakeem was forced to live among the squalor (West Midlands Police / SWNS)

Heath, formerly of Long Acre, Nechells, was staying over at a friend's flat when Hakeem was found dead at 7.37am.

She later told police she had smoked three bags of heroin - two before Hakeem went to bed at 10.30pm and one afterwards, leaving her in a drug-induced sleep.

Toxicology evidence put before the court proved Hakeem had inhaled tobacco smoke in the hours before his death, having also been exposed to heroin, crack cocaine and cannabis through second-hand smoke.

Drug paraphernalia were found at the property (birminghammail.co.uk)

Ruling that Heath should serve two-thirds of her sentence before being eligible for parole, Mr Justice Dove told her: "When Hakeem Hussain died in the early hours of the morning he was only seven years old.

"It is clear that in his tragically short life he had been an inspiration of happiness and affection for people who knew him.

"All of that potential for a wonderful and fulfilling life was cut short, extinguished as he collapsed on his own suffocating, clutching a leaf in the garden.

Heath used her son's inhalers to make drug pipes (PA)

"The truth is that Hakeem died as a result of your deplorable negligence. You had allowed your life to be completely overtaken by your addiction to heroin and cocaine. His death was needless, tragic and a result of your abject failure as his mother."

Before sentencing, defence QC Isabella Forshall said Heath's level of drug addiction amounted to a recognised mental condition.

Heath had formed her habit in her teenage years, was receiving treatment by 2002 and was a diagnosed and registered heroin addict at the time of Hakeem's death.

Hakeem lived in disgusting conditions (birminghammail.co.uk)

Heath admitted four counts of child cruelty prior to the trial, including failing to provide proper medical supervision and exposing Hakeem to class A drugs.

At the start of the trial, Crown counsel Matthew Brook said Hakeem had been repeatedly absent from school and had experienced three emergency admissions to hospital in 2015, 2016 and 2017.

After one of the admissions, the court heard, a paediatrician recorded that Hakeem had been in an "acute life-threatening" state linked to asthma.

Mr Brook told the court: "The defendant had a duty to ensure the welfare of her son.

One image shows a counter with papers and rubbish piled high (birminghammail.co.uk)

"She knew that he was suffering from severe uncontrolled asthma. There was an obvious risk that Hakeem might die from such an attack if she did not manage his asthma in accordance with the medical advice she received.

"Instead, the defendant deliberately prioritised her addiction to heroin and crack cocaine and flouted the medical advice that she received that would have kept her son's asthma under control."

Mr Brook added: "Hakeem died as a result. He died alone in the early hours of the morning, sometime between midnight and about 6am.

"At some stage that night, Hakeem got out of bed and went outside, which he would do when his asthma was bad and he needed fresh air.

Hakeem Hussain, seven, was found dead in November 2017 (West Midlands Police / SWNS)

"Usually when he had difficulty breathing, he would wake his mother - indeed he had done so the previous night - and ask her to give him his inhaler.

"The evidence shows that on this occasion his mother had not come to his aid, and sadly his lifeless body was found in the garden outside the flat.

"Hakeem was clutching a leaf in his hand. There was no sign of his asthma medication being with him."

Today Heath was sentenced to 20 years in prison.

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