Teenage mother convicted of letting baby starve to death while she went out for a week

Viktoria Kuznetsova's son died of dehydration and starvation, judge rules

Viktoria Kuznetsova left her son alone in her home for a week (VK.com)

A teenage mother whose nine-month-old son died after she left him at home to go out with her friends, has been sentenced to six-and-a-half years in prison.

Viktoria Kuznetsova told her neighbours in the Russian city of Rostov that baby Egor was being cared for by an aunt.

But the 17-year-old had actually left him in their flat as she stayed at a friend's house.

As he slowly starved, Ms Kuznetsova was said to have posted on VK.com, a social media platform in Russia, that she was “hanging out with Nastya" and that she had died her hair black.

After becoming suspicious of the teenager’s claim, neighbours alerted the police and officers found the baby's body in her home last September.

Officers said he showed signs of exhaustion and a judge ruled that the child died of dehydration and starvation.

The court heard that Kuznetsova had stayed in student dormitories for a week, leaving her son alone. Her husband had been called up for military service at the time and it was said that she was planning a divorce.

She had been planning to kill the child when she started college, the judge was told.

The teenager reportedly gave up her son to an orphanage when he was one-month old, but the baby was returned to his mother seven months later.