A MUM had her children seized by social services after neighbours found her three-year-old child wandering in the street ‘calling for mummy’.

Halton Magistrates Court heard on Thursday the Widnes mum, who cannot be named for legal reasons, had left two of her children alone why she went to the local shop.

One was aged three, and the other nine. Her third child, aged seven, went to the shop with her.

Lionel Cope, prosecuting, said the three-year-old was asleep when the defendant left on the morning of August 21, last year.

The child was found walking in the street by residents, ‘calling for mummy’, the court heard. The door to the house was open.

In a statement provided to the court, the 39-year-old defendant said: “I left my nine-year-old child and three-year-old child at home while I went to buy food from for my family at the local shop.

“I regularly visit the shop.

“It is a 10 minute walk there and back.

“I thought my neighbour was watching them.”

Police were called, with the mum-of-three claiming she had been at the rear of the property hanging out washing.

The court heard officers were ‘unhappy’ with the ‘poor, unkempt condition' of the home. Bags of shopping were on the kitchen side.

Mr Cope added that the children were taken to a foster home.

The defendant pleaded guilty to two counts of causing unnecessary suffering to a child.

She entered the pleas on the day of trial on December 20 last year.

The court heard she is attending college one day a week and hopes to get the children back.

District Judge Bridget Knight told her to ‘go away and get yourself together’.

The defendant, who is on benefits, was fined and told to pay costs of £210.