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Baby left blind and brain damaged after mum left him in 37C car for five hours while she went to play bingo

2021-11-03 00:00:00.0 太阳报-世界新闻原网页

A 14-MONTH-OLD baby has been left blind and brain damaged after his mum left him in a hot car for five hours to gamble in a pub.

Kaija Millar, 34, pleaded guilty at the County Court of Victoria, Australia, to negligence causing serious injury to her young son Easton.

Kaija Millar pleaded guilty to negligence causing serious injury to her son Easton Credit: Facebook 2

Millar left her son in a boiling hot car to gamble for five hours Credit: Facebook

The court heard Easton was strapped inside the boiling hot car with the windows closed and air conditioning off - as outside temperatures reached 37.5C.

Millar at the time was playing bingo for five hours inside the Brook Hotel before the negligent mother bothered to check on him.

The young boy's internal temperature skyrocketed to 40C, causing his body to go into renal failure and leaving his liver in distress, the court heard.

It also sent him blind and severely damaged his brain, as his body turned 'grey blue'.

Millar begged witnesses to the crime not to tell her husband what she had done, before lying to the emergency services in an attempt to cover her tracks.

She told paramedics Easton had inhaled smoke from nearby bushfires and that the windows had all been rolled down.

She also said she had been checking on him and had left the car's air conditioner on.

Despite Millar's attempts to divert police and medics away from the truth, CCTV footage soon revealed what happened.

"I didn't do this deliberately. I didn't do this to hurt my son," she told police.

Easton will have to live with permanent injuries that will impact everything from his speech to his capacity to move, see and eat. He will be in need of lifelong care.

At a previous hearing over the matter, the Melbourne Magistrates' Court was told Millar remained estranged from baby Easton's father Steve.

At the time, Mr Millar said Easton had only a 50 per cent chance of survival.

Speaking to the Herald Sun newspaper in January, Mr Millar said he was "heartbroken and devastated".

"It's still touch and go at the moment — it's 50-50 whether he'll pull through," he said.

"He has shown a few signs to me, when I'm talking to him you can see his mouth trying to move."

She will be sentenced later this month.