A registered sex offender has been jailed after a baby was found inside a bedroom drawer at the Maryport flat he shared with his partner.
Kenneth Manderson, 32, was originally sentenced in Kent during 2010 for 11 separate offences, including attempted child rape, which he had committed as a juvenile. Manderson was ordered to serve four years in a young offenders’ institution.
He was also ordered to comply with the strict terms of notification requirements — one condition ordering him to inform police, within three days, that he was living in a household where a child was also residing or staying.
But Manderson was found to be flouting that condition after his police offender manager and others made an unannounced visit to his Wood Street flat in Maryport on January 17.
Manderson told police he and his partner were recovering from Covid, was reluctant to allow them inside and the pair denied an allegation they had “concealed” the birth of a baby they’d had. Police concluded Manderson was “stalling”, Carlisle Crown Court heard today, and he denied there was a baby present.
But once inside, police saw an upturned Moses basket, baby clothing and a dummy, and heard a tot crying. After gaining access to a bedroom with a door that had appeared “wedged shut” Manderson’s partner reached into a bottom drawer.
“She pulled open the drawer, revealing a tiny, fully-clothed baby. That turned out to be a baby who was seven weeks old,” said prosecutor Gerard Rogerson.
Manderson had said: “We just want to be a normal family.” He was brought to court and admitted a charge of failing to comply with sex offender notification requirements.
At his sentencing hearing, Sean Harkin said in mitigation there was nothing to suggest the baby had been “anything other than well cared for”. “He has made a gross error of judgement. He bitterly regrets that and he is very sorry,” said Mr Harkin of the defendant. Manderson was jailed for a year by Recorder Anna Vigars QC.
