The ACT Magistrates Court has sentenced a 52-year-old woman to an intensive corrections order after she pleaded guilty to charges of child neglect.

Court documents reveal two children in the woman’s care showed signs of neglect over a period of months.

The court heard the first warning sign came when they attended a school camp interstate without any luggage or clothing.

Soon afterwards, a member of their school’s staff observed a decline in their appearance and school attendance, and that they were increasingly asking for food.

The documents stated their clothes were observed to be ill-fitting, damaged, dirty and often worn multiple days in a row.

The staff member attempted to make contact with the children’s mother on numerous occasions, the court documents revealed, but without success.

The court materials reveal that at one point the children went to a neighbour for help, when their mother did not come home.

The documents reveal she was gone for three weeks.

Eventually, they were assessed by case workers, who found one of the children had lost 20 kilograms over a period of five months, accounting for a 30 per cent weight loss.

The court also heard the other child had head lice, infections and showed signs of poor hygiene, and had to be hospitalised for a period of 11 days.

A prosecution statement of facts said the child showed signs of having been subjected to chronic physical and emotional neglect.

Police were contacted, and executed a search warrant of the woman’s home, which they found to be in a “state of disarray and dirty”.

They said they also found drug paraphernalia in the house, including numerous syringes, and observed maggots in the home’s carpet.

Magistrate James Lawton said it was clear the children had poor hygiene and were underweight for a long period.

“[There is] no satisfactory explanation,” he said.

The woman was today placed on a 15-month intensive corrections order.