A foster mom has been jailed for seven years after she was found guilty of child cruelty and child neglect that nearly cost a young girl her life.
45-year-old Sharon Lippett and her 28-year-old son Tony Lippett put their victim, a young girl, through a horrible campaign of severe neglect and abuse spanning over a period of three years.
The abuse began soon after Sharon adopted the then-2-year-old girl in 2012. Three years later, the girl had to be hospitalized due to injuries and the doctors admitted they’ve never seen so many bruises on a child before.
According to the evidence, the cruel foster mother and her son had been carrying out severe ‘punishments’ consisting of beating and hanging the child.
In one instance, the mother would pack her child in a suitcase before beating her with tools. Another time, she would place weights on the girl’s head and force her to stand in uncomfortable positions for a long time.
“The victim was extremely unwell,” prosecutor Simon Dent explained at the begging of Sharon’s trial.
“She had two fits, and was drifting in and out of consciousness. When examined, and when her clothing was removed, they found really quite severe bruising on a lot of her body.”
As Dent revealed, the girl’s body was bruised in 49 different areas with injuries not sparring the face and the top of the head.
“You can see what appears to be the outline of a belt buckle,” the prosecutor added. “The doctor’s view is that the bruising is from multiple blows from a belt or some similar instrument.”
After the girl was hospitalized, Sharon blamed local boys for beating her up. The authorities, however, didn’t fall for any of it. The girl was provided with new foster carers whom she eventually told that Sharon and her partner, Kyle Marshall, “smacked her all the time.”
Feeling safe in the new environment, the girl further opened up and claimed that her former foster mom, as well as Tony Lippett, made her eat “dog poo” and “put her hands on the floor so he could cut her fingers off.”
While both Sharon and Tony have been found guilty of child neglect and child cruelty, Kyle Marshall was only found guilty of child neglect.
In sentencing Sharon, Judge Michael Cullum said:
“The child was close to death. You took her into the hospital but I believe you only did that so you did not have to explain a dead child.
“She said you beat her with a belt and were counting the strokes. There were 49 sites of bruising. That child would have screamed at the time and would have been hobbling.
“I will repeat what the doctor said – she had never seen that many bruises on a child – then she paused and said ‘still living.’
“It was such a cruel house to be in and no child deserves to be subjected to that. People should weep over your wickedness. She has suffered psychological, emotional and developmental abuse. She was underfed, she is under tall and her weight was akin to living in famine conditions.
“This is a serious case of child cruelty. She was close to death.”
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