{"id":11752,"date":"2018-07-13T06:53:47","date_gmt":"2018-07-13T10:53:47","guid":{"rendered":"http:\/\/worldjusticenews.com\/news\/?p=11752"},"modified":"2018-07-13T06:53:47","modified_gmt":"2018-07-13T10:53:47","slug":"jordan-burling-women-jailed-after-teen-rotted-to-death","status":"publish","type":"post","link":"https:\/\/worldjusticenews.com\/news\/2018\/07\/13\/jordan-burling-women-jailed-after-teen-rotted-to-death\/","title":{"rendered":"Jordan Burling: Women jailed after teen &#8216;rotted to death&#8217;"},"content":{"rendered":"<p class=\"story-body__introduction\">The mother and grandmother of an emaciated teenager who was likened to a World War Two concentration camp victim have been jailed for manslaughter.<\/p>\n<p>Jordan Burling, 18, went into cardiac arrest in Leeds in 2016 and died weighing less than six stone (37kg).<\/p>\n<p>Mother Dawn Cranston and grandmother Denise allowed Mr Burling to &#8220;rot to death&#8221;, Leeds Crown Court heard.<\/p>\n<p>Dawn, 45, and Denise, 70, were convicted of manslaughter and jailed for four and three years respectively.<\/p>\n<p>Mr Burling&#8217;s sister Abigail Burling, who was found guilty of causing or allowing a vulnerable adult&#8217;s death, was ordered to serve 18 months in prison.<\/p>\n<p>The judge told the three women it was &#8220;almost beyond belief&#8221; Mr Burling &#8220;should have been allowed to die in his own house in the bosom of his family&#8221;.<\/p>\n<p>&#8220;Through your gross negligence, a precious human life was lost needlessly,&#8221; he said.<\/p>\n<figure class=\"media-landscape has-caption full-width\"><span class=\"image-and-copyright-container\"><img loading=\"lazy\" decoding=\"async\" class=\"responsive-image__img js-image-replace\" src=\"https:\/\/ichef.bbci.co.uk\/news\/624\/cpsprodpb\/12173\/production\/_102499047_burlingcomp.jpg\" alt=\"Dawn Cranston, 45, Denise Cranston, 70 and Abigail Burling, 25\" width=\"976\" height=\"549\" data-highest-encountered-width=\"624\" \/><\/span><figcaption class=\"media-caption\"><span class=\"media-caption__text\">Dawn Cranston, 45, Denise Cranston, 70 and Abigail Burling, 25, failed to alert a GP as Jordan Burling&#8217;s condition worsened<\/span><\/figcaption><\/figure>\n<p>&nbsp;<\/p>\n<p>Mr Justice Spencer said the pictures of the teenager in an emaciated state were &#8220;hauntingly reminiscent of starving victims of extermination camps in the Second World War&#8221;.<\/p>\n<p>Mr Burling&#8217;s malnutrition was such he weighed only 5st 11 lbs (37kg) when he died &#8220;that was not much more than twice the weight he had been at the age of four&#8221;, he said.<\/p>\n<p>His aunt, Susan Burling, read a victim statement on behalf of his father, Steven, which said the family were trying to cope with a &#8220;living nightmare&#8221;.<\/p>\n<p>&#8220;I just can&#8217;t understand why all these horrific things have happened to me and my family,&#8221; it said.<\/p>\n<p>During the trial, the prosecution said Jordan was allowed to &#8220;rot to death&#8221; by the women, who failed to phone for medical assistance until it was too late.<\/p>\n<p>Paramedics found Mr Burling wearing a soiled nappy and lying in an unresponsive state on a makeshift inflatable bed in the living room of the house in Butterbowl Garth, Farnley.<\/p>\n<p>A subsequent police search of the property found the remains of a baby boy in a rucksack, hidden on the top shelf of a cupboard in Mr Burling&#8217;s bedroom for 14 years.<\/p>\n<p>Before the trial, his mother admitted endeavouring to conceal the birth of a child and was given a 12-month sentence to run concurrent with her jail term for manslaughter.<\/p>\n<p>An NHS dietician had told the court Mr Burling, who was 5ft 5ins (1.67m) tall, had a Body Mass Index (BMI) of 13.6, which falls in the &#8220;severe thinness&#8221; category.<\/p>\n<p>The figure, based on measurements taken during his post-mortem examination, was the lowest the dietician had recorded in her 26-year career.<\/p>\n<p>During the trial, the jury was shown several pictures of Mr Burling taken by his mother on a mobile phone including one on 20 May, just over a month before he died.<\/p>\n<figure class=\"media-landscape has-caption full-width\"><span class=\"image-and-copyright-container\"><img loading=\"lazy\" decoding=\"async\" class=\"responsive-image__img js-image-replace\" src=\"https:\/\/ichef.bbci.co.uk\/news\/624\/cpsprodpb\/83E9\/production\/_102496733_9765d0d8-4293-49a1-8848-544cad0269ed.jpg\" alt=\"Jordan Burling\" width=\"976\" height=\"809\" data-highest-encountered-width=\"624\" \/><\/span><figcaption class=\"media-caption\"><span class=\"media-caption__text\">Dawn Cranston took this picture of Jordan Burling on 20 May 2016<\/span><\/figcaption><\/figure>\n<p>&nbsp;<\/p>\n<p>It was estimated he had been malnourished for at least six months before his death on 30 June, having developed bed sores so deep they left bone exposed.<\/p>\n<p>The judge said the three women had attempted to take care of Mr Burling as his condition worsened including washing him and changing his adult nappy.<\/p>\n<p>They were &#8220;relentless and unpleasant tasks&#8221; and Mr Burling&#8217;s death was the greatest punishment the three would have to bear, he said.<\/p>\n<p>Dr Cleo Van Velsen, a consultant psychiatrist who assessed Dawn, told the jury her behaviour was consistent with a dissociative disorder called depersonalisation &#8211; a defence mechanism characterised by a sense of disconnect from the world and your body to cope with acute anxiety or trauma.<\/p>\n<p>None of the three have any previous convictions.<\/p>\n<p>In a statement read outside court, the family of Mr Burling&#8217;s father, Steven, said: &#8220;We feel betrayed by the people we trusted to care for Jordan.<\/p>\n<p>&#8220;Steven and the family will always remember Jordan having a bubbly and chatty personality.<\/p>\n<p>&#8220;We have had two years of hell coming to terms with Jordan&#8217;s death.&#8221;<\/p>\n<p>James Rogers, chairman of the Safer Leeds executive, said an independent review was under way into Mr Burling&#8217;s death.<\/p>\n<p>Source: <a href=\"https:\/\/www.bbc.co.uk\/news\/uk-england-leeds-44800390\" target=\"_blank\" rel=\"noopener\">bbc.co.uk<\/a><\/p>\n","protected":false},"excerpt":{"rendered":"<div class=\"mh-excerpt\">The mother and grandmother of an emaciated teenager who was likened to a World War Two concentration camp victim have been jailed for manslaughter. Jordan Burling, 18, went into cardiac arrest in Leeds in 2016 <a class=\"mh-excerpt-more\" href=\"https:\/\/worldjusticenews.com\/news\/2018\/07\/13\/jordan-burling-women-jailed-after-teen-rotted-to-death\/\" title=\"Jordan Burling: Women jailed after teen &#8216;rotted to death&#8217;\">[&#8230;]<\/a><\/div>\n","protected":false},"author":1,"featured_media":11753,"comment_status":"open","ping_status":"open","sticky":false,"template":"","format":"standard","meta":{"pmpro_default_level":"","footnotes":""},"categories":[2,4],"tags":[5269,5267,5268,5266,5270],"class_list":{"0":"post-11752","1":"post","2":"type-post","3":"status-publish","4":"format-standard","5":"has-post-thumbnail","7":"category-news","8":"category-uk","9":"tag-abigail-burling","10":"tag-dawn-cranston","11":"tag-denise-cranston","12":"tag-jordan-burling","13":"tag-leeds-crown-court","14":"pmpro-has-access"},"_links":{"self":[{"href":"https:\/\/worldjusticenews.com\/news\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/11752","targetHints":{"allow":["GET"]}}],"collection":[{"href":"https:\/\/worldjusticenews.com\/news\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts"}],"about":[{"href":"https:\/\/worldjusticenews.com\/news\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/types\/post"}],"author":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/worldjusticenews.com\/news\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/users\/1"}],"replies":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/worldjusticenews.com\/news\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/comments?post=11752"}],"version-history":[{"count":1,"href":"https:\/\/worldjusticenews.com\/news\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/11752\/revisions"}],"predecessor-version":[{"id":11754,"href":"https:\/\/worldjusticenews.com\/news\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/11752\/revisions\/11754"}],"wp:featuredmedia":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/worldjusticenews.com\/news\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/media\/11753"}],"wp:attachment":[{"href":"https:\/\/worldjusticenews.com\/news\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/media?parent=11752"}],"wp:term":[{"taxonomy":"category","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/worldjusticenews.com\/news\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/categories?post=11752"},{"taxonomy":"post_tag","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/worldjusticenews.com\/news\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/tags?post=11752"}],"curies":[{"name":"wp","href":"https:\/\/api.w.org\/{rel}","templated":true}]}}