Couple jailed for neglecting son so badly he went BLIND

A couple have been jailed for neglecting their son so badly that he went blind.
Idle Gillian Hendry and Craig Dick, both 34, kept the 12-year-old boy and his two-year-old sister in a filthy, stinking, fly-infested house in Thornaby.
The boy went blind in his left eye from cataracts because they failed to take him for hospital appointments that could have saved his sight.
He also became increasingly crippled with arthritis until his doctors called in social services so they could give him the treatment he desperately needed.
When social workers went to the house on 21 August last year the couple would not let them inside, the Evening Gazette reports.
They returned with the police who were shocked by what they found, prosecutor David Crook told Teesside Crown Court.....MORE....

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The couple who were living on benefits in Teesdale Terrace, Thornaby, were unkempt, and the boy’s eye was white and he said that he could not see out of it.
He went upstairs and came back with his sister who he placed in a high chair.
The staircase was dirty, with trodden-in food and bin bags stuffed with dirty nappies. The girl’s cot had a damp and mouldy mattress.
The judge said that the cruelty towards her was that she had been kept in dreadful conditions.
The kitchen was dirty and infested with flies, and upstairs the toilet and bath were filthy, and the bath was filled with cold dirty water
A bedroom had been used as a toilet, and the children’s beds had filthy mattresses and no covers.
The couple’s bedroom by contrast was relatively tidy, but they said that they slept downstairs.
The children were immediately taken into care. The boy now lives with his natural father, and the girl, who was fathered by Dick, is being put up for adoption.
Lawyers for the couple said they were unlikely to have the care of any children again.

Peter Wishlade, defending the mother, said the only reason she could give was depression, which was unsupported by any medical evidence.
He said: “Other than that, I don’t know how this has happened, I cannot give any explanation.
“It is correct to say that she had indicated to a nurse at the RVI that she had let everything slip because she felt depressed.”
Jim Withyman, defending Dick, said that he was an inadequate man who could not even take care of his own personal hygiene.
He said: “There is a deficiency in him by allowing his children to live in such appalling conditions.
“He will not appear before the courts again providing that he is not looking after children.”
Judge Howard Crowson, who was shown police photographs of the house, lifted earlier court orders banning the identification of the children, which would have made naming the couple impossible.
The judge told them: “The conditions we have seen in the photographs are appalling.
“I feel this was was inadequacy rather than a deliberate attempt to cause harm to either child.
“Your own bedroom was noticeably clean although you claimed not to use it.”
Hendry was jailed for two-and-a-half years and Dick for two years and two months after they pleaded guilty to two charges of child neglect.