Three-year-old starved to death: his mother found not guilty of insanity

UPGRADE DAY

A mother who hoped to save the world from COVID-19 through fasting and prayers has reportedly been found not guilty in the death of her three-year-old son, who died of hunger and thirst after being dragged into his madness.

Olabisi Abubakar, 42, has been found not guilty in the death of his three-year-old son, Taiwo, after seeing his mental health deteriorate greatly due to the COVID-19 pandemic, The Guardian reported on Friday.

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Dead for some time, the toddler was found by the police, emaciated, alongside his malnourished and dehydrated mother, after a friend of the latter sounded the alarm.

< p>The pathologists' report determined that the young boy suffered from malnutrition and dehydration, he who weighed only 9.8 kg – about 22 pounds – when he was found.

According to the facts reported by the court, the woman in the midst of paranoid schizophrenia would have led her boy on a fast that was intended to save the world from COVID-19.

But exceptionally, the crown prosecutor, Mark Heywood, himself asked the jury to find the defendant not guilty, presenting the case as that of a “profound tragedy”, affecting a “really good mother” in her home who always emanated an appetizing smell of food, according to The Guardian.

“Unbalanced” by the pandemic and already greatly worried about her immigration status, the Nigerian asylum seeker from Cardiff, Wales, is said to have undergone a “drastic change”, even starting hearing voices and hallucinating, defense attorney Caroline Rees said.

The jury will have to continue deliberating on charges of negligence.