A PENZANCE mother jailed after her children were found living in "Dickensian squalor" has seen her sentence halved.
The woman, then 46, who cannot be identified, admitted two counts of cruelty to a child at Truro Crown Court in May this year and was given a two-year jail term after social workers found her two sons living in appalling conditions.
However, top judges at London's Criminal Appeal Court have ruled that the mother was "inadequate rather than deliberately cruel".
They heard how the boys, aged seven and eight at the time, slept in nappies, were covered in dirt, were obese and had recurring head lice.
But the appeal court judges said part of her punishment will be the loss of her children – as she is unlikely to ever care for them again – and reduced the sentence to one year.
The court was told social services became involved with the family when they were living in a "filthy dirty" home – described by one social worker as the worst she had seen.
Following the findings, regular supervision was conducted; improvements were then seen and the intervention was eventually withdrawn.
But it was reported that things deteriorated drastically over the following 15 months, with the children discovered to be living in "utter squalor".
During the sentencing hearing at Truro Crown Court, Judge Christopher Harvey Clark, QC, said that the boys were living in "deplorable conditions" and considered the case to be one of "protracted, willful neglect".
But the mother's lawyers argued that inadequate parenting skills and an inability to cope were to blame, adding the judge didn't take enough account of the difference between positive acts of abuse and cases of neglect.
A spokesman for Cornwall Council social services said: "I have been told that we are not making any comment."