A Leeds drug addict who neglected her children and allowed her two 'boyfriends' to abuse them has been jailed.
The 32-year-old left two of her three children home alone while she went to score drugs, Leeds Crown Court heard.
The sex worker's Beeston house was described in court as 'squalid' and 'unfit for human habitation'.
There was dirty washing up in the kitchen, strips of foil and unused condoms in the living room where the children had been playing, and the back door was blocked.
The three children, who all have different fathers, cannot be identified for legal reasons.
Jonathan Sharp, prosecuting, said her heroin and crack cocaine addiction affects the woman's 'ability or willingness to care for her children', adding:
"The provision of food and a safe environment for the children were secondary to her paying for and obtaining Class A drugs."
The woman sobbed in the dock after hearing that the two children, who are both in foster care, no longer want anything to do with her.
She had previously been fined for failing to wake her children up for school and has also failed to collect them at the end of the school day.
Mr Sharp said the woman successfully 'put on a front' for social workers when they visited in the past.
But when a social worker made an unannounced visit to the house on April 25, 2017, she discovered two children under the age of 10 alone in an unlocked house.
Fifteen minutes later, the defendant returned in a car with two men.
She claimed she had nipped out to buy milk, but did not have any milk with her.
When the police arrived, she told them she could not cope with the children and asked for them to be taken away - which was going to happen regardless.
She also told them she had actually went out to buy drugs, not milk, and called the social worker a 'stupid cow'.
The eldest child had gone to stay with his father five days earlier, the court heard.
Mr Sharp said: "There is no realistic prospect of this defendant having contact with any child in the future."
Her daughter later revealed to social workers that two of her mum's 'series of boyfriends' had physically assaulted her, she had begged her not to shoplift and she was able to give a detailed account of how her mother took heroin and crack cocaine.
Her daughter said that when she told her mum that one of her boyfriends had exposed himself to her, her only reaction was to tell her not to say anything about it.
Judge Tom Bayliss QC said to the prosecutor: "She has been taking drugs in front of the children."
He replied: "It's a desperately depressing case, your honour."
The defendant, who has a previous conviction for solicitation, pleaded guilty to two offences of child cruelty.
Stephen Welford, mitigating, said: "She is putting herself back on the streets in real danger in order to fund this addiction.
"It's not a surprise when she is in such a desperate state that she can't care for children - she can't care for herself. She needs help."
Jailing her for a year-and-a-half, Judge Tom Bayliss QC described her as selfish and added: "It's clear to me from your demeanour in the dock perhaps finally the realisation of the enormity of what you did to these children is coming home to you.
"Whether it's coming home to you because they now want nothing to do with you or because of the predicament you are in is a moot point."
She continued crying after asking the judge: "So I'm going to prison?"
After she was sent down, the judge said to the prosecutor: "A most distressing case and the social workers are to be commended."
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