The mother of a six-year-old girl who consumed methamphetamine that had been left in the fridge has avoided jail time despite lying to triple-zero operators about the cause of her child’s illness.
The 35-year-old was sentenced on Thursday in Perth’s District Court for having care or control of a child engaged in conduct that was reckless.
The woman was sentenced Perth’s District Court.Credit: Elliahn Blenkinsop
During the hearing, the court was played shocking footage of the girl while she was under the influence of methamphetamine that she had consumed from a bottle of water that was left in the fridge at her Byford home.
The girl had returned home from school in October last year when she saw the bottle at the back of the fridge and drank from it, prosecutors said.
She ingested some of the water, that was laced with meth, before spitting the rest out but went on to begin acting strangely.
The court heard the girl was speaking inappropriately, talking about doors being closed, about ghosts and claimed she had bugs crawling under her skin.
She was “hallucinating and agitated”, the court was told.
During this period, the girl’s nine-year-old sister filmed her throwing herself around a bed and repeatedly asking questions that were incoherent.
The child’s mother was also observed in the footage telling the girl to lay down and then cuddling her and calling her a baby.
The woman could be heard telling the nine-year-old that her sister was “coming down the other side now” before laughing.
The woman eventually called triple-zero and told operators she didn’t know what was wrong with the girl but that she thought she may have drank some vodka.
Later at hospital the woman told treating medical staff that the girl may have consumed cleaning products.
Blood tests showed she had methamphetamine in her system.
She was transferred to Perth Children’s Hospital where she was monitored and sedated before being discharged three days later into the care of her father.
The woman was arrested and later pleaded guilty to reckless conduct involving a child in her care.
At the time, the woman had a 50/50 co-parenting arrangement with her ex-husband and was taking and selling drugs from her Byford home, the court was told.
On Thursday, however, the court heard the woman had “turned her life around” and that the incident had frightened her into changing.
“She does realise it is one thing to be reckless with your own life and quite another to be reckless with the life of another,” her lawyer said.
State prosecutor David Davidson said that young children being exposed to meth can be “fatal”.
“As a mother she could have called triple-zero immediately,” he said.
“Not ‘it could have been vodka’, ‘it could have been cleaning products’. It should have been, ‘my child has consumed methamphetamine what can I do?’”
The court heard the woman had the full support of her ex-husband in her rehabilitation and although both of her children were initially removed from her care, they were now back with her.
The court imposed a 15-month supervision sentence on the woman which involved mandatory reporting and drugs testing and was given a requirement to complete some parenting and addiction programs.
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