AN INTERNET petition calling for greater sentencing powers for judges dealing with child cruelty cases has been signed by more than 260 people following the horrific death of a three-year-old Sheffield girl.
The online poll was launched in the wake of the death of Tiffany Wright, who was starved in her home above The Scarbrough Arms pub in Upperthorpe.
Campaigners are calling on Prime Minister Gordon Brown to give judges the right to jail people for l
onger for neglecting children.
Tiffany's mum Sabrina Hirst, 22, was jailed for 12 years after admitting manslaughter and her 44-year-old husband Robert - the tot's stepfather - was sentenced to five years for child cruelty. Sheffield Crown Court heard the couple regularly starved Tiffany and left her locked in filthy living quarters above their pub without supervision.
In the days before she died, last September, Tiffany had not been given anything to eat or drink for at least 20 hours, and she lay dead for two days before her body was discovered by the couple.
The petition states: "We, the undersigned, petition the Prime Minister to increase the sentencing of those responsible for the death of children as a result of child abuse and neglect."
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The full article contains 234 words and appears in Sheffield Star newspaper.