A single mother who left her three children alone while she went to visit friends competing in a bodybuilding contest in Spain has been jailed for 12 months.
The woman, 37, from Cheshire, left her two youngest children, aged six and eight, with their 16-year-old brother while she boarded a flight to Spain in May.
She was eventually rumbled when her six-year-old child told a teacher that their mother had gone away and social services were called.
The court heard the woman, who was branded ‘callous and self-centred’ by a judge, refused to fly back home when she was contacted by social services.
The single mother left her two youngest children with their 16-year-old brother while she went to a bodybuilding contest in Spain (stock image)
Liverpool Crown Court was also told she tried to leave her children with a woman who had previously been investigated for child sex abuse.
Earlier this year she left her two youngest children in her car while she went to the gym.
In 2013, her child, who was just aged three at the time, was found wandering the streets in the early hours of the morning after she attended an equestrian event.
She admitted two offences of child neglect and attempting to pervert the course of justice following her trip to Spain and was jailed for one year.
The court heard she spun a web of lies to try and cover up her behaviour and she even appealed on Facebook for someone to mind her children and tried to persuade her ex-husband to lie and say he was to care for them.
Judge Robert Trevor-Jones said: ‘That was an attempt to save your own bacon with no thought for the position of the children.’
Liverpool Crown Court (pictured) heard she tried to leave her children with a woman who had previously been investigated for child sex abuse
Judge Trevor-Jones said that the latest incident in May showed ‘a quite persistent failure by you to perform your parental duties and a breach of the trust the children would have had in you and you then covered it up.’
He said: ‘You were asked to come home at the earliest opportunity but you declined and remained until the expiry of that week displaying callous, self-centred indifference to the position of your children – a thread which runs through this case.’
He pointed out she had three months notice to make arrangements for the children and had not done so.
‘It was not an impulsive act, it was planned.’
Judge Robert Trevor-Jones added: ‘You showed quite persistent failure to perform your parental duties and a breach of the trust, and you then covered it up.
Gareth Roberts, defending, said that she realised she was in a serious position and asked the judge for leniency.
He said: ‘She has made a massive mistake combined with an equally significant serious error of judgement.’