Image copyright Family handout

The mother of a three-year-old boy allegedly crushed to death by a car seat has been jailed.

Adrian Hoare, from Gravesend, Kent, was found guilty of child cruelty after she placed Alfie Lamb in the footwell of an Audi convertible in south London in February last year.

Her boyfriend Stephen Waterson, 25, was accused of crushing Alfie by reversing the car seat into him.

Hoare, 24, was sentenced to two years and nine months at the Old Bailey.

She was cleared of manslaughter but admitted perverting the course of justice and was convicted of assaulting Emilie Williams, who was in the car at the time.

A jury failed to reach a verdict on a manslaughter charge for Mr Waterson, from Croydon. He is due to face a retrial in September.

The trial had heard how Alfie had collapsed on the journey back to Croydon from a shopping trip to Sutton on 1 February 2018 and died in hospital three days later.

Sentencing her, Mr Justice Kerr told Hoare: "There was an element of deliberate disregard for Alfie's welfare.

"I cannot ignore your own admission that you had allowed him to travel in the footwell many times."