A mum from the UK fed her four-year-old hard drugs to keep her from interfering in her relationship with a local drug dealer, a court has heard.
Poppy Widdison died in June 2013 of a heart attack. She was found unresponsive at the “squalid” home of John Rytting – her mum’s boyfriend – in Grimsby, Lincolnshire.
This month, Michala and her partner appeared in court accused of child cruelty, with the prosecution stating the couple deliberately fed Poppy drugs.
Text messages between her mother Michala Pyke, and her boyfriend John, revealed at times they would give the child a “blue Smartie…the one she likes” to sedate her, so that she didn’t interfere with their sex life.
Tests carried out on the youngster found that she had ingested a variety of drugs up to six months before her death, including heroin, sedatives, methadone and ketamine.
The prosecution accused Michala of finding her daughter “an inconvenience,” who was “interfering with Miss Pyke’s enjoyment of her relationship with Mr Rytting.”
And while the drugs little Poppy ingested could not be proven to be the cause of death, the jury heard that there was a “long period of ill-treatment and neglect by the grossly inappropriate administration of various drugs to the child by the defendants.”
The court also heard that Michala was in the process of moving from her “relatively clean and tidy” home to the “somewhat squalid conditions” of her boyfriend’s house, where drugs were in plentiful supply.
“We say Pyke and Rytting, the defendants, are just wanting to get on with their love life, wanting to enjoy each other’s company and it may be this young girl was something of an encumbrance,” said Mr Gordon for the prosecution.
The trial continues.
