Parents who caused death of buried Birmingham boy jailed

After he was exhumed, Abiyah was found to have been in a severely malnourished state and suffered from a list of other health problems at the time of his death.

These included bone fractures, rickets, anaemia, stunted growth and severe dental decay.

Post-mortem tests failed to ascertain the cause of Abiyah’s death, but experts were able to say that if the three-year-old died from a respiratory illness, as described by his parents, the effects of malnutrition would have been a “more than minimal” cause of his death.

Both parents had denied neglect, causing or allowing the death of a child and perverting the course of justice.