FORCE-FEEDING PARENTS HAD BEEN WARNED BY DOCTORS AND SOCIAL SERVICES

The parents of a baby girl who choked to death after they allegedly force-fed her had been warned about the practice by doctors and social services, a court heard today (Fri).

The 10-month old infant, known only as Baby D, died on March 3 last year after inhaling food into her lungs after being fed in a manner which was ‘obviously dangerous’, it was said.

Just four months earlier, the child’s four-year-old sister needed plastic surgery because of an injury caused by force-feeding, jurors were told.

The parents, who cannot be named for legal reasons and who have two other children, are now facing a trial at the Old Bailey accused of causing or allowing the death of Baby D.

Andrew Edis QC, prosecuting, said the four-year-old girl had been treated for a scar to her lip in November 2009.

‘The surgeon was told by the defendants that the injury had been caused by force-feeding by Baby D’s grandmother while she was in Ghana.

‘The grandmother was present and accepted this was the case.

‘What the parents did undoubtedly know at this stage was that force-feeding is dangerous because their older child had to have plastic surgery because it had happened to her at the hands of the family.’

He added: ‘The prosecution say that the history of the children, all of it taken together, clearly shows an abnormality that is not unique to Baby D.

‘That is relevant in deciding whether the cause of her death was something peculiar to her or whether it was something being done to her by her parents.

‘But it also shows another important thing.

‘By the time Baby D was born, and indeed when she was enjoying the first few months of her life, because of what had happened to her sister and because of the intervention of social services, not only during the summer of 2009 but as far back as 2006 and 2007, these parents both understood the dangers of force-feeding.

‘The evidence shows that notwithstanding that knowledge they carried on and treated Baby D in exactly the same way.’

Another of the couple’s children, aged eight at the time of Baby D’s death, had a history of breathing difficulties going back to 2006, the court was told.

‘The GP diagnosed breathing difficulties as being caused by a respiratory tract infection,’ said Mr Edis.

‘But he did not know what the pathologist was to find out just a few months later after Baby D had died.

‘It may be that the experts will invite you to look at this and say at least some of these consequences need to be viewed together with the fact that some of the food in the lungs of Baby D was quite old.

‘They combine to make a pattern that by now force-feeding is happening.

‘Exactly when it started it may never be possible to say and in one sense it doesn’t matter.’

He added: ‘The evidential picture clearly shows the cause of death was from force-feeding, a form of feeding which was obviously dangerous.’

Jurors are due to begin hearing from the first witnesses in the case this afternoon (fri pm).

The father, 37, and mother, 30, from east London, deny causing or allowing the death of a child.

The trial continues.

mfl

ENDS