Leeds Crown Court today heard an officer found the youngsters, both under five, undernourished and pale along with their baby brother when they went to make a check at their home in the Pontefract area last May following a referral from the NSPCC.

There was excrement on the wall of the girls' bedroom which also smelled of urine and contained a dirty mattress with no bedding.

The only food in the house was half a packet of bacon and a few tins of vegetables in a cupboard. The fridge contained a small amount of milk and a tin of baby milk stood on the worktop.

There was, however, food and biscuits for the family dog which appeared well fed.

When the officer returned to the house after leaving to seek advice, attempts had been made to clean the bedroom and some friends had arrived with a six pack of crisps, from which one girl ate four in succession.

Georgina Coade, prosecuting, told the court the youngsters were taken to a police station where they were given two slices of toast each, a bowl of cereal to share, a banana, crisps, and biscuits but they continued to pick crumbs up from the floor and searched cupboards and the bin for more food. They were also constantly thirsty, she added.

The older girl's nappy was overflowing and her lower clothing wet and she had to be changed before handed into the care of social services.

Miss Coade said the foster carer who took the children in following the parents' arrest said the most striking thing about the girls was their hunger.

The older girl ate five bowls of cereal for her first breakfast while her sister had four, they then ate cereal bars, yoghurts and a banana. "They also opened the kitchen bin to try and get waste food out."

The parents, both in their early 20s, today admitted three charges of child cruelty by neglect and were each given 12 months in prison suspended for two years, with supervision and a condition of attending an enhanced thinking skills course.

Judge Sally Cahill QC, who ordered the children should not be identified, told the pair: "When police came to your home the conditions they found were quite horrendous, you had looked after them in a way which has been described to me in court.

"They had faeces in their hair, no bed to sleep on and they were clearly not fed."

She said she was not imposing an immediate prison term because they were both clearly inadequate in their own ways and had already suffered the greatest punishment from the civil courts with their children being taken into care.