A mother fed her four-year-old daughter sedatives because she felt she was an inconvenience to her relationship with her drug dealer boyfriend, a court has heard.
Poppy Widdison, from Grimsby, died from cardiac arrest at Sheffield Children’s Hospital in June 2013.
Opening the case against her mother Michala Pyke, 37, and and Pyke’s partner John Rytting, 40, at Hull Crown Court, prosecutors said Poppy had ingested a variety of drugs for up to six months before her death, including sedatives, heroin, methadone and ketamine.
Both Pyke and Rytting deny child cruelty, the BBC reports.
Prosecutor David Gordon said text messages between the couple referred to the four-year-old having a ‘blue Smartie’ and going to sleep, which he said was a reference to the sedative diazepam.
Another text from Pyke to Rytting told him to: “Get them blue Smarties ready, the ones she likes.”
Gordon said: “She regarded her child, her own daughter, as something of a nuisance and interfering with Miss Pyke’s enjoyment of her relationship with Mr Rytting.”
The exact cause of Poppy’s death is not known but Gordon said experts agreed there was a a long-period of ill-treatment.
Quantities of prescription and controlled drugs were also found at Rytting’s house in Grimsby when it was searched.
Absolutely horrific.
