Mother, 40, walks free from court after abandoning her three children aged four, six and 12 to go CLUBBING
A mother who abandoned her three young children to go clubbing has been spared jail despite it being the second time she had left them home alone.
The 40-year-old, of Leigh-on-Sea, Essex, spent a day shopping with her boyfriend before heading to a night club in London.
She had taken an overnight bag with her and was planning on staying in a hotel.
Her reckless actions were exposed when police were called to a heated dispute between her and her partner at the Coronet nightclub in New Kent Road in south-east London.
'Put pleasure before children': A mother left her three youngsters home alone to go clubbing at the Coronet nightclub (above) in London has been spared jail
The woman, who cannot be named for legal reasons, admitted to officers she had left her three children at home, but claimed they were with a babysitter.
Metropolitan Police contacted their counterparts in Essex and officers were sent to her home where they found lights on inside but nobody would answer the door.
It was only when police warned they would force their way in to the home, that the mother finally admitted her three daughters - aged 12, six and four, were home alone without a minder.
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Basildon Crown Court was told the mother had left a mobile phone with the girls but did not have one with her so there was no way that she could be contacted.
At her sentencing hearing yesterday, it emerged she had received a police caution for a similar offence in 2009 when she left her girls home alone.
The mother, who appeared in the dock in a white blouse, wept as Judge Owen Davies QC told her she would not be jailed.
Irresponsible: Basildon Crown Court (pictured) was told the mother had left a mobile phone with the girls but did not have one with her so there was no way that she could be contacted
She was instead sentenced to a 12-month supervision order having pleaded guilty at an earlier hearing to neglecting and abandoning her children.
During the hearing, Judge Davies said: 'Here we have for the second time, little girls left alone to fend for themselves whilst their mother thinks only of herself.
'It was her choice to leave her children, to take a change of clothes and go to a night club and to plan on staying in a hotel.
Sentencing her, he said: 'You abandoned three little girls aged 12, six and four. The picture appears to be very clear.
'You put your own pleasure and desires before their safety and left them at great risk.'
As the sentence was passed the mother wailed from the dock: 'I am so sorry, I am very sorry to everyone here.
'I will never do it again.'
'You put your own pleasure and desires before their safety and left them at great risk'
Judge Owen Davies
Peter Clark, prosecuting, told the court: 'There are no previous convictions but there was a police caution from four years ago for child cruelty.
'She abandoned three children aged between nine months and nine years same children and was given a police caution.'
He said when officers quizzed the woman about her latest abandonment she initially said there was a babysitter back in Essex before later tearfully telling them 'I lied'.
The children were taken into the police station and cared for - an experience described by the judge as 'frightening'.
The court heard that the oldest daughter had been 'primed' to tell officers that their mother had only left them 20 minutes previously.
Paul Vickers mitigating, said his client had suffered domestic abuse and was not able to say 'no' to her partner when he suggested that they go out together. The woman admitted a charge of wilfully assaulting, neglecting, abandoning, exposing or ill-treating children, in a way likely to cause them unnecessary suffering or injury.