Mother jailed for leaving daughter, six, home alone for five days.

 Natalie Terry, 28 was jailed for 18 months after leaving her daughter to fend for herself for five days.

A six-year-old girl was left home alone in a freezing flat for five days with nothing to eat but Monster Munch, yoghurt and drinking water a court has heard.
The girl's mother, Natalie Terry, 28, was jailed today following the child cruelty case that heard the girl eventually knocked on the door of a neighbour's house in Dartord, Kent.
Shaking and sobbing hysterically, she told them 'mum has left me five days and has not come back'.
When she was arrested at the sparsely furnished flat that was extremely cold and had no carpets, Terry said to police 'I neglected my daughter. End of'.
There were cat's faeces on the floor and the kitchen was dirty with little food. The only luxury was a flat screen TV.
Terry's neighbours contacted police after the girl turned up on their doorstep. When Terry finally returned, she asked where her daughter was after being told she was with police she said: 'I will not get her back.'
Prosecutor Peter Forbes told Maidstone Crown Court that Terry had said to police that she had been working nights at a shop in Woolwich and had tried to get home before the girl woke up.
'I am doing everything I can to earn money and keep my job', she said.
However, it has not been made clear where Terry actually was during the five-day ordeal.
The girl told police that she had got dressed for school and waited for her mother to return. However, when she did not come back, she took off her uniform and watched TV instead.
Throughout her five-day ordeal in November 2010, all she had to eat were Monster Munch crisps and yoghurt.
Mr Forbes told the court: 'She said when she realised she was on her own, it made her feel sad.'
But he added: 'There is no suggestion she was locked in.'
Terry pleaded guilty to child cruelty and admitted that she had left her daughter alone on previous occasions.
The child is now being looked after by her grandparents and has been seeing her mother under supervised contact.
The court heard that the schoolgirl could feel blame for her mother's 18-month prison sentence, but Judge Martin Joy said it was deeply troubling that the girl was taking responsibility for her mother's actions.
As he rejected calls for the mother to be spared jail,  Judge Joy said there must have been have been an element of danger to the child in abandoning her for so long.