Couple who took cocaine before baby died avoid jail
The couple were sentenced to unpaid work at Inverness Sheriff Court
- Published
A couple from Moray who took cocaine before a baby in their care died have avoided a jail sentence.
The three-month-old boy died after ingesting drugs which were being taken by Sam Scott and Abigail Sherwin in February 2021.
The pair admitted neglecting the child by recklessly consuming the drug in his presence, but tests were unable to determine that cocaine exposure was the cause of his death.
They were sentenced to 250 hours' unpaid work and two years' social work supervision.
Sheriff Ian Cruickshank accepted that the remorse shown by Scott, 32, and Sherwin, 28, was genuine and that they had "turned their lives around".
Sentence had been deferred at Inverness Sheriff Court for a background report on the pair who previously admitted two charges of causing two boys to directly or indirectly ingest controlled drugs while they were in their care.
Tests on hair samples from the other child, a toddler, found he had been exposed to the Class A substance between July and November of 2021.
Fiscal depute Robert Weir told the sheriff the baby was found dead on 9 February and Sherwin called an ambulance.
The pair both admitted to having consumed cocaine the night before and provided urine samples to police.
Mr Weir said two baby bottles were also seized and both tested positive for cocaine.
Sudden death
The woman's urine sample tested positive for desmethyldiazepam, cocaine and cannabinoids and the man's ibuprofen, levamisole - a common cocaine adulterant - cocaine and cannabinoids.
Mr Weir added that a post-mortem examination revealed no injuries on the baby but a minimal amount of cocaine and its metabolites were found in his urine.
He said: "The cause of death was certified as ‘sudden death in infancy with cocaine exposure’.
“Subsequent expert opinion was that the cause of death could not be linked to the presence of cocaine."
Scott and Sherwin both also admitted causing the other child unnecessary suffering by regularly consuming drugs while he was in their care.
Sentencing each of them to 250 hours of unpaid work, the sheriff told them: "Your individual involvement in the drug culture led to the death of a child but I accept there was no intention to harm.”