Addict who used tragic son’s inhaler to smoke crack is jailed for 20 years
A DRUG addict who used her little boy’s inhalers to smoke crack cocaine before he died alone from an asthma attack has been jailed for 20 years.
Laura Heath was at a friend’s house, lying in a heroin-induced sleep, when seven-year-old Hakeem Hussain died.
He was found, clutching a leaf, in his garden in Nechells, Birmingham.
Coventry Crown Court heard a school nurse had warned at a child protection conference that Hakeem “could die at the weekend” – just two days before his death in November 2017.
He had been admitted to hospital suffering from asthma three times in the previous two years.
Toxicology evidence proved Hakeem had inhaled tobacco smoke hours before he died. He had also been exposed to heroin, crack cocaine and cannabis through second-hand smoke. But his mum had deliberately “prioritised” her addictions and left him without an inhaler, the court heard.
She was still at her friend’s flat when Hakeem was found. It is thought he went outside to try to get some air into his struggling lungs.
Heath, 40, told police she had smoked three bags of heroin on the night he died.
She admitted child cruelty and was convicted of gross negligence manslaughter.
Passing sentence yesterday, Mr Justice Dove said Hakeem was “an inspiration of happiness and affection” but “all of that potential for a wonderful and fulfilling life was cut short, extinguished as he collapsed on his own suffocating”.
He told Heath: “The truth is Hakeem died as a result of your deplorable negligence. His death was needless, tragic and a result of your abject failure as his mother.”