Siblings jailed for leaving their mother to die without “most basic needs”

THE SUPREME COURT in Madrid has ordered two children of an elderly woman to serve a 17-year sentence in prison for leaving their mother to die “in a cruel way”.
The defendants were condemned by the judge for their “absolute laziness” in caring for their sick mother, 76, neglecting her “most basic needs” of food and hygiene.
The convicted siblings appealed an original judgement from 2015 in Santa Cruz, Tenerife. However, the judge at Spain’s Supreme court refused to alter the offenders original sentence.
Prior to her death in 2015, the ill mother lived with her son, daughter-in-law and granddaughter in Tenerife, Canary Islands.
The convicted son had agreed to share care responsibilities with his sister as their mother suffered from osteoporosis, osteoarthritis, urinary incontinence, senile dementia, and had even tried to commit suicide twice.
The judge declared in court that the siblings had neglected this responsibility: “they totally ignored her most basic needs”.
The court heard that the siblings stopped feeding, cleaning and moving the bed position of their mother which resulted in her “foreseeable and avoidable death” on August 26 2015.
The main causes of death of the mother were: “chronic malnutrition, severe anemia, infected ulcer ulcers and acute purulent bronchopneumonia.” She weighed just 25 kilos at the time of her death.
In Spain, the Civil Code ensures the obligation of children to care for their parents when they are unable to do so and when they “have reached an age and cannot fend for themselves”.
Both siblings will serve 17-years in prison for failing to reciprocate the attention that their parents gave them when they were unable to look after themselves.