Susan Marks Moody (24), and Simon Colin Moody, (33), of Longnor Walk, Mansfield, locked Charlotte Avenall in her excrement-covered room for 12 hours each night at their then home at Moor Lane.

The girl, who had severe learning difficulties, was left to use a chest of drawers as a toilet. She was found on 12th September last year, having accidentally hanged herself from a cord tied to a window.

The Moodys subsequently both pleaded guilty to cruelty to a person under 16, and were each given 12 months imprisonment at Nottingham Crown Court on 12th March.

On Tuesday they asked Lord Justice Moore-Bick, Mr Justice McCombe and Judge Francis Gilbert QC, sitting at the Criminal Appeal Court in London, to cut their jail terms.

Judge Gilbert, delivering the court's judgement, said that police officers had told how they had never encountered such filth in a bedroom.

The family's tanks of pet spiders and lizards, however, were regularly cleaned out and the animals appeared 'well cared for', the judge added.
But when Charlotte died she was dehydrated, had overgrown fingernails and hair riddled with lice and her bedroom was 'a foul and filthy mess'.

Refusing both appeals, the judge said: "Charlotte's death was tragic but preventable. She required constant supervision and care, but these appellants locked her in her room overnight and did not check her.

"She was left in a foul and filthy mess. On the day she died, she had been locked in that stinking room for 14 hours. The rope in the room would have been discovered had they gone in there.

"This was negligence rather than willful ill-treatment, but we consider that the judge was right to impose the sentences that he did.

"The sentences passed were not manifestly excessive and accordingly we dismiss these appeals," the judge concluded.