Prison for mother-of-six who starved infant twins to death FOR an entire week, the mother-of-six hid the bodies of her infant twins -- dead from malnutrition -- under a clean sheet in a single cot, behind their closed bedroom door. Emaciated and badly decomposed, it wasn't until their 11-year-old sister dared to sneak into the room and wiggle the little girl's toe that the horrible truth was discovered. It was not unusual for the rest of the family, living in a squalid, insect-infested home in Brisbane's southern suburbs, not to see the 18-month-old toddlers for weeks on end. The children's mother had been struggling to cope for months. Severely depressed, she spent evenings consumed by online games while her live-in but estranged partner -- and father of her children -- played poker in pubs and drank away their meagre savings. He hadn't seen his babies for up to two months when they died under his roof. She knew she should have been feeding her twins more than just formula, but -- overwhelmed by mental illness -- could not bring herself to do so. Yesterday, the woman, 35, was sentenced to eight years' jail for the manslaughter of her youngest children. Distraught and racked by "immense" remorse, she had pleaded guilty. But, given she has spent each of the 1885 days since the twins' bodies were found in June 2008 in custody, she will be free to apply for parole immediately. Queensland Supreme Court judge Peter Lyons accepted that while the woman -- who cannot be named for legal reasons -- underfed her children for months causing their deaths, she did not intend to kill them. "They were helpless and vulnerable; you were their primary carer and they were completely dependent on you," Justice Lyons said. (Your behaviour was a) gross departure from the minimum standard which our community expects of a person in your position. The woman's partner, who admitted to police he had been a "piss-poor father" -- has also pleaded guilty to manslaughter and is expected to be sentenced next month. Her defence lawyer yesterday described his behaviour as "incomprehensible" and said he ignored the twins and their mother when he could have "opened their door just once." The tearful mother wearing a knitted grey jumper and with her hands clasped, sighed as Justice Lyons delivered her sentence. When she is released on parole, the woman wants to re-establish her relationship with her surviving children -- who are in foster care -- to the extent she is allowed by authorities. Her oldest daughter, who found the bodies in their cot five years ago, is now 16 and speaks to her mother on the phone each day. She was in court yesterday. Outside court, the twins' maternal grandmother said the children's relatives still asked themselves if they could have prevented the tragedy. "We all feel guilty that anybody and everybody who went to the house, we all should have done more, but we didn't," she said. The sentencing comes two months after the mother of seven-year-old Ebony -- who died of starvation in her home near Newcastle in 2007 -- had her life sentence for murder reduced to 30 years.