A Florida woman has been arrested for pouring boiling hot water on a young girl’s bottom and genitals for pooing on the carpet, probably disfiguring her for life.

Angelina Mayton, 23, is accused of scalding the girl with hot water on her buttocks, genitals, and lower back. It was not revealed what the name was of the child or her exact age, nor the relationship with the girl and how they came to be in the same room.

She was arrested on 6th January and charged with aggravated child abuse causing serious bodily injury, according to local reports.

The investigation started on 27th December when the defendant brought the young victim to Palm Bay Hospital in the city of Palm Bay in Brevard County in the US state of Florida with third-degree burns below her waist.

According to the police affidavit, doctors asked what happened and the defendant claimed the girl accidentally turned on the hot water tap in the bath when she stepped out of the room because her other two children were crying.

She said the girl had climbed out of the bathtub on her own by the time she returned, and she found her lying on the floor and crying that the water was too hot.

The youngster was then transferred to a hospital in Orlando with a paediatric burn unit.

Doctors who attended the girl said that, as well as the burns, she had also suffered other injuries that suggested abuse, including scratches and bruises.

The girl had also reportedly broken her wrist about two weeks before and the injury was left untreated.

Doctors said the burn injuries indicated a precise pattern and contradicted the woman’s account of being in the bath and turning on the hot tap herself.

The police were told by doctors that the girl’s burns “were in a unified pattern as though her back, buttocks and privates had been dipped into the water”, according to reports.

Doctors also told detectives that the girl’s arms and feet were unaffected, indicating that they were not submerged in the hot water. There were also no splash marks, which should have been visible had she jumped out of the bath when the water became too hot.

The Department of Children and Family Services (DCFS) and the police reportedly concluded that the water would have been “at least 150 degrees”.

While the girl’s age and relation to the defendant were not divulged, the DCFS said she was “not tall enough to raise herself out of the water”.

Meanwhile, the victim’s two brothers said she had defecated on the carpet in the living room on the morning of the incident, according to reports.

The police believe Mayton poured hot water on the victim as a “malicious punishment”.

The investigation continues.