A woman who was found slumped comatose over her 15-month-old daughter, halfway inside a fridge, has been sent to jail.

The mother and former heroin addict from Park Wood, Maidstone, who cannot be named for legal reasons, had received a suspended prison sentence in July this year after being found guilty of wilfully neglecting her child.

She appeared in Maidstone Magistrates' Court again this month after failing to attend a drug rehabilitation appointment, which had been ordered as an additional sentence requirement by magistrates.

Magistrates activated the suspended sentence and she will now serve 90 days in prison.

At a trial earlier this year police told magistrates how they had found the mother and child after they were called to premises in Park Wood, to investigate a separate incident, on April 5, 2007.

They had found uncapped syringes, blood stained medical swabs and an overflowing bath in the flat, and described the woman as being in a "drug-induced stupor".

The mother admitted having taken prescribed methadone earlier that day, and had gone on to take Valium and drink some wine.

The young girl has been in care since being taken from her mother by officers on the day she was discovered.