Mum burned boy with cigarettes and fed him dog food in campaign of abuse

A woman has been sentenced to four years in prison after she subjected a little boy in her care to a horrific campaign of abuse.

The little boy, entrusted to the care of Siann Cawley, 27, was forced to eat dog food and was burned repeatedly with a cigarette.

Cawley previously pleaded guilty at a hearing in Preston Crown Court to charges of assault, ill-treatment, neglect and abandonment.

She’s now been sentenced to four years and three months in prison

The mum, from Fleetwood, Lancashire, abused the child, who cannot be named and is not her own, over a three-week period.

It was also revealed that Cawley locked the boy inside a room by himself for hours while she left the house.

Cawley is now serving her sentence at HMP Styal in Cheshire.

In 2018, a child abuser held a lighter against the feet of a four-year-old boy he had previously convicted of abusing.

Dakota Bruce allegedly beat and burned the boy shortly after he was released from jail for being convicted of battering the then two-year-old because he wouldn’t stay in bed.

Bruce worked as a babysitter for the boy’s mother even after he was convicted of hurting her son, and claimed the boy had accidentally bumped his head while alone in the bathroom.

But after he was taken to hospital, medics found further bruises – as well as burn marks on his feet consistent with torture by a cigarette lighter.

They also noted that the boy had suffered a brain bleed.

When interviewed by police, he told the detective that ‘Dakota hurts him,’ according to court papers, before putting his hand to the left side of his head – where the brain bleed had occurred.

Asked if he had ever been burned, the boy said yes, the Lexington Herald Leader reported.

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