A teenage mother has been arrested after her 20-month-old daughter starved to death while she was out partying with friends.
Verphy Kudi’s child Asiah perished in the supported housing block in Brighton after being abandoned for six days with no food or water in December 2019.
Kudi, 19, had been celebrating her 18th birthday on benders in London, Coventry and Solihull – 150 miles away – and last month pleaded guilty to manslaughter, DailyMail reports.
It has now been revealed the young mother had left Asiah unsupervised 11 times in the weeks from mid-October 2019 to the toddler’s tragic death.
On the first occasion she was reportedly spoken to by concerned staff at Gocher Court, the accommodation for vulnerable families where she lived.
These previous occasions were brought to light by the prosecution at a bail hearing in Hove last year, according to The Times.
YMCA DownsLink Group, which runs Gocher Court, said staff were ‘aware of a safeguarding incident’ involving Kudi in mid-October, and had contacted the authorities.
But one of Kudi’s relatives told the newspaper last night the family was never alerted to her behaviour and this was the first time they had learned of it.
YMCA said it was not familiar with the other reported occasions, but prosecutors believe seven of the incidents are of a serious nature.
They include the final occasion Kudi left Asiah on December 5 before returning to find her dead on December 11.
A post-mortem examination and forensic tests found that Asiah starved, was dehydrated and developed flu. Her cause of death was given as neglect.
Last month Lewes Crown Court heard how, after returning home from the party spree, Kudi called 999 saying her baby would not wake up.
Asiah was taken to Royal Alexandra Children’s Hospital in Brighton but was declared dead on arrival.
Kudi, who is due to be sentenced next month, has repeatedly gone missing since the age of 14 and been the subject of numerous police appeals.
At court last month her father Muba Kudi, 59, said: ‘My heart is so broken. My daughter was missing. She had been missing since the age of 14.’
