The mother of a three-year-old girl who was kept in a drawer and had never seen daylight or another human face has been jailed for more than seven years.

The girl was found severely malnourished and unable to walk or speak in February 2023 by a partner of her mother’s who had gone upstairs to use the toilet and heard a noise that sounded like a baby.

He discovered the little girl, who had a cleft palate, with matted hair and suffering from dehydration, and called the police.

A statement read to the court by the social worker who was first on the scene said: “I was taken aback by what I saw and was extremely shocked to see a baby looking up at me sat in a divan drawer. [The baby] stared at me and was rocking back and forth.

“I looked at her mum and asked: ‘Is this where you keep her?’ The mother replied matter-of-factly: ‘Yes, in the drawer.’ I was shocked the mother did not show any emotion and appeared blase about the situation.

“I asked had anyone else ever seen [the child]? Mum stated: ‘No’. It became an overwhelming horror that I was probably the only other face [the girl] had seen apart from her mother’s.”

The girl had been born in the bathtub of the home in Cheshire in March 2020 but had been kept secret and never registered. The mother, who cannot be named for legal reasons, told police she had been in an abusive relationship with the father of the baby and did not want to tell him she was pregnant.

She put the baby in a drawer in her bed, returning now and again to feed the child milky Weetabix through a syringe and change her nappy.

As time went on, the mother went to work and took her other children to school, leaving the child alone in the drawer for hours on end, including leaving her overnight on Christmas Eve while she went with her other children to stay with her parents.

When the girl was examined by medical experts, she could not crawl, walk, talk or make any communicative noises.

She also had poor muscle bulk, floppy limbs and swollen feet in an abnormal position. Her development was so delayed because of the extreme neglect, she was equivalent to a 10-month-old baby, the Crown Prosecution Service (CPS) said.

A carer who is now looking after the child told the court the girl had needed to be taught to smile and “didn’t know what food was”.

“[She] has had her first Christmas with us, we have done so many ‘firsts’ with her, putting her in a swing and she just sat there not knowing what to do or expect,” the carer said. “Her first step, her first word. It is so sad to think so many of these things are her firsts but it is lovely to be able to spend these moments with her.”

The senior prosecutor Rachel Worthington, of CPS Mersey-Cheshire, said: “This child has never had a birthday present, a Christmas present or anything to recognise these days. She’s had no interaction with any of her siblings.

“She hadn’t known daylight or fresh air and didn’t respond to her own name when she was first found.”

She added that the mother’s motivation was not clear but that justice had been done.

The judge in the case, the Recorder of Chester, Steven Everett, said the mother’s behaviour “totally defies belief. You starved that little girl of any love, attention or interaction with others, a proper diet, much needed medical attention for a cleft palate.

“That little waif was locked in a room on her own. What you did was wicked beyond belief. Your actions were catastrophic. She is now coming to life from what was possibly a living death.”