Mother whose son drowned while she was using social media jailed 5 years

           Claire Barnett and her son, Joshua Barnett              (C)rossparry

Claire Barnett, 31, has been sentenced to five years in prison as judge blames her ‘bad parenting’ for garden pond death. Barnett’s two-year-old son, Joshua Barnette, was reported to have fallen into a pond and drowned while she was checking Facebook on her phone. The incident which happened at their Beverley, East Yorkshire home, had the judge criticizing her for “bad parenting” and was told she posed a danger to any child for whom she had responsibility during a hearing at Hull crown court on Friday.
Barnett, was looking at her phone at the time of the boy’s death, it was revealed. She attempted to save the child but he died in hospital later the same day. The court also heard how she had let Joshua play out in the road when she lived in Hull in August 2013. Neighbors contacted social services after he narrowly avoided being hit by a car. Barnett pleaded guilty to four counts of child cruelty.
Judge Jeremy Richardson told her: “Your son died due to your neglectful conduct. You will have to live with that for the remainder of your life. For a parent to behave as you did, repeatedly, amounts to consistently bad parenting.
“I trust that you will never be allowed to have further unsupervised contact to any child. If you should have any further children, they will almost certainly be removed from you.
“You pose very serious risks to any child for whom you might have responsibility.”

Source: The Guardian