Child Youth and Family is to review how it handled a case where five children were so badly neglected they had to eat rotten food. "In 2015 when the children were found neglected home alone, they immediately came into CYF care and the mother was charged." Judge Gus Andree Wiltens told Pita: "You deserted them and left them to their own devices." The court heard that Pita often left her children at home on their own in September and October 2015. CYF would "review whether everything that could have been done was done for this family" after an independent expert panel that reviewed the case found CYF should have intervened earlier, Social Development Minister Anne Tolley told Fairfax.

Source: New Zealand Herald March 03, 2017 06:33 UTC