Mother convicted after baby dies from morphine in breastmilk

[MavisG]

Story here www.theguardian.com/science/2014/apr/09/manslaughter-conviction-negligent-breastfeeding-mothers#comments

I'd like to help this woman, to donate a few quid towards cost if appeal and to write to her. Any idea how I could go about either? Google not helping.

www.theguardian.com/science/2014/apr/09/manslaughter-conviction-negligent-breastfeeding-mothers#comments

so the baby developed ok and was born healthy with same amount of meds in the uterus,but dies from them in breast milk?

"there is little scientific evidence that enough morphine can gather in breast milk to kill an infant."
that poor woman is all I can say.

That article is a year old.

Is it? Sorry, didn't realise. A friend just shared it on fb.

sounds like the kind of friend that needs deleting tbh

I'd still like to help her. I can't see any more about her so I guess she's still inside, with fifteen years to go before she can be considered for parole.

The baby had levels of morphine in its body that would have killed an adult.
Greene used her nursing background (she had been struck off as a nurse for trying to get controlled drugs) to work the system.She concealed from her primary doctor who prescribed the morphine, that she was pregnant/breastfeeding and registered with another doctor for her pregnancy.She sent her husband in to pick up the morphine when her pregnancy became obviouys.She had previous children in care and when police investigated her house there was morphine and painkillers about that her 4 yr old could have easily got at.It is possible that she might have orally administered morphine direct to the baby.
In short she was completely aware of the harm that morphine would do but went to make sure she still got it and passed it on to her baby.

OK

That's odd breastfeeding while in morphine is encouraged in the UK.

It's an odd verdict, though. It looks, on the face of it, as though she has been convicted on the strength of having lethal drugs in her house, being devious in her acquisition of them, having medical training and being the parent of a dead baby (ie, the prosecution, jury and the judge took a dislike to her.)

In order to justifiably be found guilty you'd have supposed that the prosecution would need to show how the drugs were administered, not guess. Someone else could have done it, or it could have been accidental. The fact that the tooth fairy's breast milk, conceivably might have poisoned the baby is irrelevant.

I'm not particularly sympathetic towards the mother, but the judgement is ridiculous.