A 7-year-old boy died after suffering an asthma attack without his mother helping him, as she used her son’s inhalers to smoke crack, a case of negligence that outraged England.
Laura Heath, drug addict, will go behind bars 20 years after admitting child cruelty, for which she was found guilty of grossly negligent homicide, after jurors heard how Hakeem Hussain, her son, was found dead in a garden in Nechells, Birmingham.
In a trial at Coventry Crown Court, a school nurse was said to have warned at a child protection conference that Hakeem “could die at the weekend” just two days before his death in the Sunday morning 26 November 2017.
It is believed that Hakeem, who had been admitted to hospital for asthma three times in the previous two years, came out only when Heath deliberately “prioritised” his heroin and crack addiction, leaving him without an inhaler.
Heath, formerly of Long Acre, Nechells, was staying at a friend’s apartment when found dead to Hakeem at 7: 40 am.