Abbi Taylor pleaded guilty to dumping bags of toxic materials outside Newcastle nurseries earlier this year, with her defending lawyer saying she had done so to ‘gain comfort’
A woman who admitted to taunting “horrified” parents with rancid nappies and smearing faeces on nursery walls and bottles of milk has avoided prison.
Abbi Taylor pleaded guilty in April to three counts of dumping bags of toxic materials – nappies containing human waste – at nurseries in South Shields, South Tyneside. Today she was sentenced to two years in prison, suspended for two years, after the judge heard about her “particularly difficult time” in custody.
Newcastle Crown Court heard the 46-year-old local from Newmarket Walk had smeared faeces on milk bottles and the walls of a nursery, and had climbed in clinical waste bins for “comfort”.
She also admitted to stealing clinical waste bags from one business, and breaching a criminal behaviour order preventing her from entering within 10 metres of a nursery without reasonable excuse.It comes after man called 999 for ‘his own protection’ – then ended up jailed himself.
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Prosecutor Jane Foley told the court that staff first noticed Taylor’s bizarre behaviour when they found nappies had been dumped on the nursery premises in 2023. In May that year, one employee sad they saw Taylor exiting from one of the waste bins.
The court heard she had seen “a pair of legs climb out from inside the bin and run off”, and the manager at a South Shields nursery reported having seen someone “rooting around inside” a clinical waste bin four months earlier.
Staff at one nursery in Jarrow said they initially believed a rival business may have been responsible for the waste after they discovered 50 soiled nappies on site.
Ms Foley said staffers later found excrement smeared on milk bottles and the nursery fire escape. During the trial, the court heard she held a Facebook profile through which she referred to herself as an “adult baby diaper lover”.
Defending Taylor, Nick Lane said she was going to childcare settings to “gain comfort”, having found what he said was a “coping mechanism” for a “very unfortunate” childhood.
He added she appeared to be going through “age regression” and had no sexual interest in children, instead saying people with a nappy fetish often yearn for a “simpler, more care-free time”.
Taylor, who identified and was referred to in the court as a woman, was subject to a three-year criminal behaviour order preventing her from going within 100 metres of nursuries after she was convicted of causing harassment, alarm or distress at a local care provider.