A two-month-old baby died after being left alone in a shed by his parents, a family court in Liverpool said in a ruling on Tuesday. The incident took place during the first COVID lockdown, in June 2020, when the baby was placed in carry cot on top of an uneven cardboard box in the outhouse, according to Liverpool Echo. The baby boy's carrycot tipped off the cardboard box head first causing him to suffocate, the judge further said. The parents had denied leaving the baby in the shed and claimed he had been asleep in their bedroom.
The father of the toddler had said when he found the boy, he had stopped breathing. When paramedics visited the house, they found the baby in a bedroom with his parents. But the police searched the house and found the carrycot in the shed in a "tipped up" position, according to Liverpool Echo.
The cause of the death was not clear, and the lawyers of the parents had argued that he died of sudden infant death syndrome (SIDS). But, the Liverpool Family Court judge concluded that his breathing had been "compromised" after the cot tipped.
The judge also said that the couple had been arguing as they had "lack of sleep and intimacy", and that's why the little boy was put in the shed where he died.
The judge also accused the parents of colluding "to provide a false account of the circumstances" to police officers, medical professionals and social workers".
The parents had said that the cot was moved out of the bedroom to make way for the paramedics, but the judge refused to buy their argument. The judge said the baby had been left "unsupervised" in his carrycot on an unsecured cardboard box in an outhouse.
