Boy who starved to death was too small to reach fridge, says mum

Bronson Battersby, the two-year-old boy who was found starved to death alone next to his father who had suffered a fatal heart attack over Christmas, was two inches too short to reach the fridge, his heartbroken mother has said.

Bronson’s body was found with his father Kenneth’s at their home in Skegness on 9 January.

The boy’s mother Sarah Piesse, 43, told The Sun she would never forgive herself for not being there for him.

The couple – who also share a daughter, three, and son, seven – split in 2019, and both decided Bronson would live with his father.

She said she was consumed with “regret” and haunted by the vision of her son searching desperately for food and water.

“I am in a living nightmare and I am never going to wake up from it,” she said.

Bronson’s ‘last moments were spent alone’

She described Bronson as a “typical, cheeky, little two-year-old” who “was always trying to get his pink wafers”.

“When we said no more, he’d smile and shout, ‘Yeah! More, more, more!’

“Kenny moved all the snacks higher up so he couldn’t get to them without asking.

“Now all I can think of in my head is him starving, reaching up and trying to get them. I can’t bear it.

“He was about two inches off being able to reach the fridge to open it.

“His last moments were spent alone and he must have been so thirsty and hungry.

“He will have been crying. He will have been so confused.

“And Kenny was there on the floor. I can only pray he thought his dad was asleep.”

‘If Bronson was a little taller… he would have survived’

She said she knew the pair had “a big Christmas dinner together”.

“All the food would have still been in the fridge,” she said.

“If only Bronson was a little bit taller, then he would have survived.

“The fridge would have been packed with Christmas leftovers.”

She said she was still struggling to come to terms with what had happened – and not being there for her son.

“It is haunting me,” she said.

“I jolt awake thinking of him wandering around alone, starving.

“He must have been so weak in the end that he decided to give up and hold on to his dad, hugging his legs.

“I will never forgive myself for not being there.

“When I picture him alone in that flat it makes me feel like a failure, cruel, selfish.”

‘My whole world fell apart’

Bronson’s Christmas present remains still wrapped up at her flat.

The last time she saw her son was in November because she and his father had fallen out.

“I will never stop regretting that now. I can’t sleep because every time I close my eyes I see his face,” she said.

She told of how she ran down the road screaming Bronson’s name when she learned the boy’s father had died – and a child was found at the scene.

“My whole world fell apart,” she said.

The little boy had been under children’s services care. Ms Piesse blames social services for not doing more to help them.

Lincolnshire Police was contacted on two separate occasions by a Lincolnshire County Council social worker who got no answer when they tried knocking on the door of Mr Battersby’s home.

On 9 January, the social worker was given access to the property by the landlord – and the tragedy was discovered.

The council is reviewing the case, while the force has referred itself to the police watchdog.

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