Mother jailed over son's death

Michelle Dickinson had denied the charges

A woman has been jailed for life for attempting to murder her seven-year-old son by poisoning him with anti-epileptic drugs.

Michelle Dickinson, 30, was sentenced at Liverpool Crown Court.

Dickinson, from Seascale, Cumbria, invented symptoms of epilepsy for her son, Michael, and fed him a cocktail of prescription drugs for four years.

Michael died from pneumonia in hospital in Leicester in October 2000, after spending 102 days on a life support machine.

Michael died in October 2000

Dickinson falsely claimed her son had been suffering from epilepsy since he was three years old and began poisoning him with the drugs.

She managed to get double the prescribed quantity of drugs from her local GP surgery, Seascale Health Centre.

Eventually she tried to kill Michael by giving him drugs through a nasal feeding tube.

During her trial the jury was told Dickinson had reduced her son from being an ordinary little boy to a "drooling, pathetic victim in a wheelchair".

System failed

Dickinson was also found guilty of four counts of cruelty.

After the trial Dr Robert Walker, from West Cumbria Primary Health Care Trust, said an inquiry had been held into how Dickinson managed to get more than twice the prescribed quantity of drugs from her local surgery.

He said: "The system should have flagged up the quantity issue because most prescribing is computerised.

I regard this sort of behaviour as absolutely at the top of the scale of cruelty to children

Mr Justice Pitchers

"That did not seem to be happening with the system in Seascale."

Doctor Venkat Ramesh, a child neurologist, began to suspect Michael was being given too many drugs by his mother in the summer of 1999.

The court heard how Dickinson suffered from Munchausen Syndrome by Proxy - an attention-seeking disorder which drives sufferers to harm others.

Referring to her crime, Mr Justice Pitchers said: "You did it deliberately. The personality disorder from which you are suffering does not remove your ability to make choices.

"You did choose to do all the dreadful things you did. I regard this sort of behaviour as absolutely at the top of the scale of cruelty to children."