A lifestyle blogging father has been jailed for eight years for causing the death of his newborn son by demanding the child live on a ‘diet’ of sunlight instead of food and milk
Maxim Lyutyi, 44, and his partner Oxana Mironova, 34, failed to properly feed their baby Cosmos, who died from ‘pneumonia and emaciation’ when he was less than one month old.
The Russian father will serve his sentence in a high-security penal colony.
He took the baby away from his mother for a day at a time ‘dousing him with cold water to harden him’, reported Mash news outlet.
‘The little body could not withstand the abuse: exhaustion developed and breathing problems appeared. But even in this condition, the child was not shown to doctors.’
Lyutyi caused ‘intentional infliction of grievous bodily harm’ to Cosmos by insisting the baby be nourished mainly on sunlight, the court in Sochi heard.
He admitted his guilt in a court appearance last week after previously trying to pin the blame on Mironova who has already received a non-custodial sentence of two years ‘correctional labour’.
He had claimed she had an iron deficiency which caused the death of the baby weighing three-and-a-half pounds.
Lyutyi told the court he was guilty of ‘negligence’. ‘I admit my guilt,’ he said. ‘If I knew that my son was born prematurely, that his mother had contraindications for pregnancy, then at the first symptoms of the child’s illness.
‘I would immediately contact a hospital, regardless of the wishes and beliefs of the mother…’
He urged would-be partners to care for their health before conception and pay more attention to the baby than he had done.
On video, he said: ‘Your Honour, distinguished court, I still insist [I did not deliberately kill my child…].
‘This is purely a crime of negligence…without such intent. I emphasise once again that I loved my son, cared for him.’
Lyutyi had been held in custody for a year where he was found to be eating meat – pasta with stew – ignoring his own philosophy.
The court was earlier told Lyutyi wanted to raise the newborn on prana-eating – a diet in which people go without food and water for a long time and ‘feed on the sun’.
He was accused of barring Mironova from breastfeeding the child, and was described as a ‘radical raw food fanatic’.
‘He wanted to experiment on the child, feed him purely with the sun, and then advertise it to others that this is how you can eat,’ said one source.
A court official said Lyutyi was also fined £860.
