Mum who fed drugs to daughter, 4, '˜feels responsible for her death'

A mother who fed her four-year-old daughter sedatives because she was an 'inconvenience' to her relationship with her partner faces the daily realisation that she was responsible for the death of the young girl, her barrister told a court yesterday.
Poppy WiddisonPoppy Widdison
Poppy Widdison

Michala Pyke and John Rytting, both described as drug dealers, allowed Poppy Widdison to eat drugs, including diazapam, heroin, methadone and ketamine, for up to six months before her death in Grimsby.

The pair were due to be sentenced for child cruelty and drugs offences at Hull Crown Court yesterday but the Recorder of Hull, Judge Jeremy Richardson QC, adjourned the case, saying he needed time to reflect.

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Poppy died in June 2013 after suffering a cardiac arrest at Rytting’s “squalid” home, where prescription and controlled drugs were “left lying around”.

A post-mortem examination could not establish a cause of death but toxicology tests carried out on her blood and hair found various drugs, and showed the young girl had been exposed to and had ingested significant amounts of heroin and methadone for a period of between two and six months before her death.

David Gordon, prosecuting, told a trial that text messages between the pair discussing Poppy having a “blue Smartie” - a reference to the sedative diazapam - and going to sleep showed that Pyke viewed Poppy as an “inconvenience, who she felt was in the way with regards her relationship”.

Katherine Goddard, defending Pyke, said her client faced the “realisation she has every day that ultimately she is responsible for the death of her daughter, morally, if not in law”.

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She described Pyke and Rytting’s relationship as “toxic in every sense of the word”.

Timothy Roberts QC, for Rytting, said the local drug supplier’s culpability was less than Pyke’s as he was only in a position of responsibility for Poppy in the last six weeks of her life, while experts claimed she had been given drugs for up to six months.

He said: “Michala Pyke had primary caring responsibility for her daughter and it’s not without significance that the scientific evidence indicated that, over a six month period, there had been an ingestion of prescribed drugs.”

But Ms Goddard said two drugs found in all sections of Poppy’s hair were prescribed only to Rytting, who has a number of previous convictions, including jail sentences for burglary and grievous bodily harm with intent.

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Both defendants will be sentenced for child cruelty by allowing Poppy to be accommodated in a house where prescribed and controlled drugs were unsecured and within reach of the child and by encouraging her to ingest prescription and/or controlled drugs.

Pyke, 38, also faces sentencing for child cruelty by emotional abuse, possession of methadone with intent to supply and supplying the same drug. Rytting, 40, will be sentenced for importing drugs, supplying controlled drugs and possessing cannabis with intent to supply.