A MOTHER of three young children left them home alone while she went to the pub with a friend, a court heard.

A neighbour heard a child screaming at around 10pm on July 9 last year and looked out to see a toddler standing in his doorway, wearing only a T-shirt.

On entering the flat, she found a younger girl covered in vomit and a baby girl with a soggy nappy and a red-raw bottom.

Plymouth Crown Court heard that the kindly neighbour cleaned the children up, but that the flat was a mess of left-over food and dirty dishes.

Police were called and within minutes traced the mother, 24 year-old Emma Daly, to the Windmill pub in Leigham. Her reaction was: "I can't believe he's done this", but later she admitted the children's father, who had left her a year earlier, had not been left in charge and that she had gone out at 8pm after putting the children to bed. She said she had been unable to cope since he left the family.

Jo Martin, for Daly, said she was a vulnerable young woman who had been in a relationship with the father described in court as "violent and abusive".

She clearly loved her children, who are now being cared for by her parents, and she sees them regularly at their home, said Miss Martin.

Daly, of Bellflower Close, Plymouth, was receiving counselling, and while she had been seen by the Harbour Centre, did not have a problem with alcohol, she said.

Judge Francis Gilbert QC said Daly had been abandoned by her partner when she was two months pregnant and already had two small children to care for.

She was also faced with losing their accommodation because the landlord wanted to sell their home.

Daly had arranged a babysitter for the evening, but they cancelled.

Judge Gilbert told Daly: "You were suffering from post-natal depression.

"When the babysitter cancelled, you cracked and went out, leaving the children alone."

He sentenced her to a community order with 150 hours of unpaid community work.