Kelly Marie Pocock sentenced, “Cigarette Mum”

January 22, 2009 by Baby Chums
Filed under: News

Kelly Marie Pocock, 24, whose three-year-old boy lit a cigarette butt and smoked it in full view of her has received a suspended jail sentence.

The smoking baby was filmed on a mobile phone and passed to social services by a concerned friend of the boy’s mother.

Kelly, a mother-of-three from South Wales, appeared in court for sentencing after pleading guilty to one count of cruelty to a child under 16 at a hearing last month.

Prosecutor Jonathan Rees told the Crown Court: “The video demonstrates the boy placing a cigarette into his mouth, lighting it with a lighter and sucking, drawing smoke clearly into the lungs and he seems to do it with some accomplishment.”

“It doesn’t cause him any discomfort. He is sat on a chair close to the mother, who is talking on the phone.”

“It is clear that the boy, at the age of three, knows what to do with a lighter and cigarette.”

After being charged, Pocock entered a guilty plea on the basis that she had not seen her son smoking before.

Judge John Curran said the case was one of the most “extraordinary” he had ever come across.

He said: “This is an appalling situation and I don’t see how, despite your basis of plea, you could have been unaware of the fact”.

He continued by saying that while the offence would normally cross the custody threshold, he did not want to cause her children any further emotional harm by separating them from their mother.

Judge Curran also acknowledged the “considerable efforts” Pocock had taken to improve the situation.

Pocock was sentenced to 40 weeks imprisonment, suspended for two years. He also imposed a 12-month supervision requirement.