The High Court’s Kaohsiung branch on Thursday increased the prison sentence of a single mother who caused the death of her five-month-old child by leaving her at home alone for two days.
The 21-year-old defendant, surnamed Yang (楊), was originally sentenced by Kaohsiung’s Ciaotou District Court to six years in prison for abandonment resulting in death, but the verdict was appealed by prosecutors on the grounds that it was too lenient.
The High Court increased the sentence to seven years, six months.
The High Court said in its verdict that Yang, who at the time of the incident lived in Kaohsiung’s Zuoying District (左營), was the sole caregiver of her two daughters, who were one year old and five months old.
The younger daughter had a ventricular septal defect, a congenital heart condition that caused her to be underweight, the verdict said.
She needed to be fed and given medication regularly, it said.
On the night of Dec. 25, 2019, Yang went out with her older daughter, leaving the younger child at home without having made any arrangements for someone to feed her or care for her, it said.
When Yang returned home two days later, at 5:35pm on Dec. 27, she found the child without a pulse, but waited until 6:23pm to call an ambulance, the verdict said.
The girl died of rhabdomyolysis and acute tubular necrosis, which are associated with acute kidney failure, it said.
The High Court said that despite her daughter’s health problems, Yang had routinely neglected to feed her on a regular basis.
However, the verdict said that Yang did not intentionally cause the child’s death, and cited as as mitigating factors that she was unemployed and is currently pregnant.
The verdict can be appealed.
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