Ruth Auta, a 28-year-old Nigerian nurse, has been sentenced to 3-years imprisonment by a United Kingdom court after she left her 10-week-old baby, Joshua Akerele, alone at home while she went to work.
The incident tragically led to the baby’s death.
On the morning of 20 December 2022, Auta left her son at her nurses’ accommodation at the Royal Bolton Hospital shortly after 06:30 GMT.
She returned over eight hours later, only to find her baby unresponsive. At 15:24, she called an ambulance, reporting that her son was not breathing.
Despite desperate attempts to resuscitate him, Joshua was pronounced dead at 16:40.
At an earlier hearing, Auta pled guilty to child cruelty. Following her guilty plea, she attempted to flee the country, but was apprehended and later sentenced to three years in prison by Bolton Crown Court.
According to the BBC, the court proceedings took place on Tuesday.
Sara Davie, District Crown Prosecutor for CPS North West, condemned Auta’s actions, stating that while she went to work to provide care for other people, Ruth Auta left the very person who needed her care the most home alone.
Davie further emphasized that as a nurse, Auta should have been fully aware of the risks involved in leaving an infant unattended.
“As she begins her sentence, she must now live with the consequences of the terrible decision she made that day,” she added.
Davie also noted that Auta had shown no remorse throughout the investigation, saying, she misled police about her childcare arrangements and then tried to evade justice by attempting to flee the country.
Davie expressed her condolences, stating, “Our thoughts and sympathies are with all those who have been affected by Joshua’s death.”
Prosecutors revealed that Auta left her accommodation shortly after 6:30am to begin her shift, abandoning her son in the flat.
According to the Daily Mail, no conclusive cause of death was determined for Joshua, although the court heard that he may have overheated due to the layers of clothing and bedding he was wrapped in.
However, other potential causes of death could not be ruled out.
The court further heard that Auta initially lied to the police, claiming she had picked Joshua up from a childminder after her shift and had fallen asleep next to him, only to wake up and find him unresponsive. CCTV footage, however, showed Auta leaving her flat at 06:47 without her son and returning alone at 15:13.
Investigators also discovered incriminating messages on her phone, where Auta asked the childminder to lie to the police, claiming that she had looked after Joshua on the day of his death.
The childminder, however, told officers she had not seen the baby for several days.
Charged with cruelty to a child, Auta pled guilty at Manchester Magistrates’ Court on 24 May. Her sentencing was scheduled for 21 June, but she was arrested on 6 June at Gatwick Airport while attempting to board a one-way flight to Nigeria.
