London - A toddler died in agony from swallowing a wrap of heroin left beside his cot weeks after social workers declared he was not at risk from his drug addict parents.
As the mother and father of 23-month-old Daniel Jones were on Wednesday jailed for four years and six years respectively, it emerged social services staff failed to act despite knowing he was in the care of junkies.
Weeks before his agonising death, social workers took the boy off an “in need” register, preventing him from being removed from the filthy drug den where he was neglected.
On Wednesday, a serious case review was launched by the body responsible for safeguarding children as police released pictures of the squalid home in Wolverhampton where the child’s parents, Emma Bradburn, 34, and Simon Jones, 30, allowed him to die.
In one, Daniel’s green dummy lay on the couple’s unmade bed, which was littered with beer cans.
Another showed a child’s bucket stuffed with cannabis leaves which were grown in his bedroom and a third showed syringes used to inject heroin in a plastic Kinder egg container.
Wolverhampton Crown Court was told there were also 30 cannabis plants growing in the family’s loft. On the evening of May 29 last year, Daniel, who would have turned three last week, got into his parents’ bed after swallowing a wrap of heroin which had been left beside his cot.
At 5am, after feeling his freezing cold hand on her leg and realising he had choked on his own vomit, Bradburn made a frantic call to paramedics, screaming: “My baby is dead, he’s not breathing. He’s blue, he’s not breathing at all. He’s cold. He’s cold.”
The boy’s parents were arrested in December after tests revealed there was enough heroin in Daniel’s body to kill an adult.
Forensic testing of his hair showed he had also been exposed to other drugs including cannabis, cocaine and amphetamines.
On Wednesday, Bradburn was jailed for four years after admitting causing or allowing the death of a child but denying manslaughter, which the court accepted. Due to time spent in custody, she could be free as soon as December 2014.
Jones, who pleaded guilty to manslaughter, was jailed for six years but under judicial guidelines could be free by December 2015.
Passing sentence, Mrs Justice Thirlwall said: “You two as parents are both responsible for his death.
“You will both have to live with this forever.” She accepted the parents “both loved Daniel” and “are both distraught” but added that they “failed woefully to protect” their son.
The court heard how Jones, who took heroin on the day of his son’s death, had taken class A drugs since he was 16.
Bradburn has a string of convictions for drugs dating back to 1999. She bought their £200 000 home on a leafy suburban street after she received a six-figure compensation pay-out following a car crash in 2003. Detective Inspector John Smith, from West Midlands Police, said: “These people should have been caring for Daniel and ensuring his welfare but, sadly, their actions and lifestyle have led to his death.”
“Daniel was a fit and healthy little boy and it is tragic that he will not reach adulthood.”
Wolverhampton South West MP Paul Uppal said: “I think people across the country will feel the sentences handed down are unduly lenient.” A spokesman for the National Association for People Abused in Childhood said: “It is a very lenient sentence. This toddler has died because of his parents’ actions yet they could be out in what is effectively a matter of months.
“This particular sentence will send out the wrong message to parents and carers.” - Daily Mail