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NEWS: Mum charged after toddler eats pills

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Mum charged after toddler eats pills
By Lisa Miller
July 14, 2003

A WOMAN whose three-year-old daughter swallowed five ecstasy tablets has been charged with endangering the child's life.

In what is believed to be the first case of its kind in New South Wales, the woman, who cannot be identified for legal reasons, will face court later this month charged under the Children and Young Persons (Care and Protection) Act.

Police will allege the woman, a 28-year-old from Campbelltown, was in a hotel room on the Hume Highway at Bass Hill when the incident occurred on June 27.

It is believed the woman is a sex worker who was entertaining at least one client while her child was in the room.

Detective Chief Inspector James Johnson, of Bankstown police, said the child might have mistaken the ecstasy tablets for lollies.

"The tablets were lying near a candy packet and it appears the young child picked them up and swallowed them," he said.

"She became very ill and was taken to Bankstown Hospital. From there she was rushed to the Children's Hospital at Randwick in a very serious condition. We believe the child started coughing violently and this was brought to the attention of the mother by another person in the room."

The girl has made a full recovery and is now in the care of the Department of Community Services, which is assisting the police investigation of the incident.

Her mother was charged at Maroubra police station later that day.

Insp Johnson said it was the first time something like that had happened in his area.

Under the Act, a person can be charged if they behave in a way which causes the physical injury or sexual abuse of a child.

Actions which cause emotional or psychological harm or which impair the physical development or health of a child also are a criminal offence.

Most cases of child abuse are prosecuted under the Act, but this is believed to be the first time a parent has been charged with allowing their child access to a dangerous drug. The mother faces a maximum penalty of $2200 and a possible jail term if found guilty.

Last week, a 10-month-old boy was taken to hospital in Aberdeen, Scotland, after swallowing a drug believed to have been ecstasy.

Last year the two-year-old daughter of British actors Jude Law and Sadie Frost was taken to hospital after swallowing an ecstasy tablet.

Iris Law was at a children's birthday party at a trendy London nightclub when she picked up the tablet from the floor and put it in her mouth. Doctors managed to remove most of the tablet and she escaped unharmed.


The Daily Telegraph
Click to expand...

From here.
 
It sounds like the kid is slightly disadvantaged already (mother is a sex worker "entertaining" clients in the same room as the child, also no mention of father), so I hope that the punishment takes the childs welfare into account... While punishment is necessary, throwing mummy in prison or extracting shitloads of money will only make things more difficult...
 
I think she deserves more of a punishment than that... the kid doesnt deserve to be bought up with that kind of treatment.

I hope she gets jail, and the Kid gets the care that he deserves by a caring relative or something.
 
It's a shame to see this kind of incident occurring with increasing regularity. Maybe people are so casual with pills or think they're so harmless that they just forget to keep them out of reach of their kids? Like, don't kids around that age just chuck anything they can get hold of in their mouths, so you'd be stupid to keep anything below elbow height?

BigTrancer :)
 
High Society by Ben Elton had a similar situation... and I remember thinking at the time that pills are probably the most revolting thing I have ever tasted... why would a kid thinking it was candy, not just spit it right out?
 
Exactly BT, the mother was obviously just a careless slob. she doesnt deserve a child.
 
Insomnia: Quit being so fucking judgemental. She's got the kid, and the kid is most likely NOT going to be better off if the mother is further fucked over by the forces of the law, and CERTAINLY not better off in foster care. Hell, you smack her with a huge fine, she's going to be doing more tricks and probably dealing too to try and make ends meet, think that's good for the kid?

Its a shitty situation in which there are no winners, really. The punishment needs to fit the crime, and in my opinion, it would be best to make the mother attend some kind of parenting classes or counseling for a time.

In the main, I concur with what apollo said.

-plaz out-
 
yeah im confused, FIVE of these pills, which would taste like absolute shit... you'd think the kid would spit em out.

i wonder how the toddler would have reacted.....?
 
FIVE of these pills, which would taste like absolute shit... you'd think the kid would spit em out
Click to expand...

Well, considering 3 year olds have been known to eat anything from dirt to cockroaches (and worse!) I don't think its all that surprising.

As for the situation; as BT said it has become all too common these day to leave pills lying around. But to form any conclusions based on information provided in the above story is unfair. Ecstasy eaten by kids sure makes for a good headline, but in reality kids have eaten pharmaceuticals since pills were first put in bottles.

From The Royal Adelaide Womens and Children's Hospital 1996

Poisoning cases treated

Internal medicines n=258, 33.8% (of total)

Foreign bodies n=218, 28.6%

Animal hazards n=152, 19.9%

Household, fertiliser, DIY, n=72, 9.4%

Plants n=28, 3.7%

Chemicals and solvent n=11, 1.4%

External medicines n=9, 1.2%

Pesticides, herbicides and fungicides n=8,1.0%

Cosmetics n=5, 0.65%

Noxious foods n=1.0, 0.1%

Unspecified n=1.0, 0.1%

Click to expand...


Taken from Ben Selinger's, Chemistry in the Market Place; 5th Ed page 520
 
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I think another angle to this whole case, and it's something that I've noticed increasingly recently is the use of illicit drugs, but especially ecstacy by sex workers with clients (or vice versa, or both). There was a recent case in Australia of a gigolo who killed a client while they were both on a cocktail of ecstacy and Viagra and I think practising auto-erotic asphyixiation.

Anyway I think this is something that needs more research, I'd volunteer if anyone wants to put up funding. =D
 
i can see how the child could eat the 5 pills and not spit them out......
babies will eat anything and everything, nothing will posibly deter them (although this kid may be more catious from now on)
when i was a baby i sat down and ate $4 in loose change, 5 tiny tablets wont make a difference
DfI
 
Despite the danger to the baby's health, they could have had a really bonding moment between mother and child ;)
 
That kid woulda been rockin hard with the wiggles.

At least that kid had a reason to have a dummy in its mouth unlike the 18year old ravers I see.

I feel like punching it down there throats.

Actually, once I did punch a raver in the face for that very reason.

Me and my coke heads mates laughed, and then drove the fuck outta there in our VT's up King street. :)
 
^^ who in their right mind would leave poisonous internal medicines in reach of children?

Well in a single area in Adelaide in 1996, 258 people were admitted to hospital because at least 258 people did.

It's unfortunate but it does happen. We tend to intitially react in a very rightous fashion when we read about a child being affected by another's drug use, but in reality such situations can easily occur, even amongst normally responsible people.

You may end up at a recovery party, chopped and half crashed out on the sofa, only to awake to find there are kids living in the house. I've seen it happen more than once where drugs are on the coffee table at the end of a night when kids are waking up. Now most people, if they thought kids would be around, would be more than careful. In fact I've seen the same situation turn to a mad panic to clean up when its realised kids are living in the house.

The above scenario of course appears to be different in that it was the mother who left the pills lying around, but apart from possible carelessness due to intoxication, she is hardly any more *guilty* than someone leaving paracetamol or other toxic to children medication within reach. (It's very possible that 5 x 500mg paracetamol tablets could cause serious liver damage to a 3 year old) However, casting shame on someone who is undoubtedly regretful of her actions isn't likely to help avoid future catastrophes. On the other hand, spreading word of this story may make a big difference.



As a little side story. Once while working in HM at a large outdoor rave, I had a guy come up saying he'd lost 5 packets of ketamine and thought some kids may have taken it thinking it was speed or coke, as they had seen him weighing it. He said it was concentrated and only a small line would likely k-hole a kid. Needless to say we were rather on the edge of our seats all night expecting to see some very distressed kids at some point. It never happened, but it outlines the potential for accident in any situation involving dangerous medications or drugs in the hands of intoxicated or unaware people.
 
When I was a toodler, I drank a bottle of tranqilszer that my brother and myself shared when we were toodler because my mum used to give us some before bed so we could go to bed early.... they even did backwards the time by 1-2 hours so we could fuck off and go to bed..... Because I remembered this tranq. tasted so nice, nice sweet and milky taste, we were hypo troublemakers.....

Well My bro and I drank the whole bottle while my mum was the phone in other end of the house, and after we drank the tranq, we ended up smashing my mum's $5000 china set like frisbees, and then we passed out, and mum found us zonked out and she was really worried and rang the posion information centre and they simply told my mum to try keep us awake by banging our heads together... you can image how wrecked my mum was the next day.....

No wonder why I like drugs nowdays... got my first taste when I was a toodlier hehehe :D

Urbie
 
I can vouch for toddlers eating and everything...

When I was 2 I ate one of those poisonous toiletry air freshners (The ones that make public toilets smell the way they do) and was in hospital for 2 weeks with burned digestional tract?!? (all the way down) and poisoning..

2c
 
Child ate ecstasy tablets

Child ate ecstasy tablets
November 4, 2003 - 4:05PM
http://www.theage.com.au/articles/2003/11/04/1067708196762.html
THE AGE

A woman faced a Sydney court charged with neglect after her child ate up to five ecstasy tablets.

The 24-year-old, who cannot be named to protect the identity of the child, was charged under NSW's Child Protection Act after the incident at Gardenia Motor Inn in southwest suburban Bass Hill on June 28, 2003.

Her three-year-old child was taken to Bankstown-Lidcombe District Hospital in a coma that night after eating up to five tablets from the floor of the motel room.

The tablets had originally been hidden inside a hollow children's chocolate, a Kinder Surprise, Bankstown Local Court was told.

Police allege the mother of two failed to tell doctors what her daughter had ingested, despite being asked about 15 times by police and hospital staff.

Constable Amy West, from Bankstown police, testified that on the night, the woman said: "No, I don't take drugs ... it must have been her dad. He must have cut the fly screen open during the night and thrown some drugs in."

The woman, who is representing herself, said she had seen what she thought was a lolly and it tasted like cherry.

"I remember thinking Kinder Surprises don't have lollies," she told the court during her cross-examination of Const West.

The hearing before Magistrate Mark Shepherd continues
 
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