Baby-death mother was given wrong prescription, inquest told

Abbie Jones, who was born with Down's Syndrome and a hole-in-the-heart, received 10 times the dose she was meant to have after her mother was supplied with the wrong prescription. Abbie was admitted to Sheffield Children's Hospital suffering from dehydration and septic shock on May 1, 2006, but died on June 3.

Sheffield coroner Chris Dorries said she had received "an inappropriate amount of medication" before she was admitted to hospital.

It emerged that a pharmacy supplied Abbie's mother Maxine Winfield with two bottles of the diuretic Furosemide which were wrongly labelled to give doses of 5 mls twice a day.

Instead she should have been giving the baby 0.5 mls of the concentrated liquid.

Miss Winfield told the Sheffield hearing she gave the baby at least two doses. Abbie fell seriously ill within a few days and was taken to Sheffield Children's Hospital where doctors gave her another two doses from the same bottle until the error was realised. Mr Dorries said: "It was 10 times stronger than it was meant to be."

Ms Winfield, 30, of Gilroyd, Barnsley, had insisted she would not have given her daughter the wrong dose.

After Abbie's death a police investigation was launched and Miss Winfield and the baby's father, Neil Jones, were driven from their home by a hate mob.

The house was trashed and all Abbie's clothes and toys were stolen. Mr Jones subsequently took an overdose and died.

The hearing continues.