A mum allegedly poisoned her son by injecting faeces into his IV drip as he lay in a hospital bed.
The woman, who has not been identified for legal reasons, left her child delirious with a fever at Westmead Children’s Hospital in Sydney, Australia, in 2014, a New South Wales district court heard.
The prosecution said nurses heard the then nine-year-old boy scream: “Why are you making me sick… why are you poisoning me?”
A blood diseases expert said an organism which can only live in the bowel was found in his blood, 7 News reports.
His blood culture also tested positive for e.coli, a bacteria which can occasionally cause stomach cramps, bloody diarrhoea and vomiting.
The 39-year-old mum-of-four denied the charges.
Her lawyer said the presence of the organism and bacteria in the child’s blood may have been caused by contamination.
Davey Everson, 23, became “riled” that three-month-old Millie-Rose Burdett had begun to look like her biological father.
He launched a “sustained assault” and caused the child “acute and lasting pain” during the attack at home in Rickmansworth, Hertfordshire, on December 15, 2018.
The child died on January 11, 2019, after being admitted to hospital with serious injuries, including a bleed on the brain.
Everson initially claimed she had choked while eating.
The baby was later found to have suffered 12 fractured ribs and two leg fractures, both existing injuries from before the assault, when she died, having been in a coma for nearly a month.
Everson, from Edmonton in north London, began a relationship with Millie-Rose’s mum Kirsty Burdett, from Rickmansworth in Hertfordshire, while she was pregnant.
The court heard Burdett was in the bathroom while Everson was alone feeding Millie-Rose during a 20-minute period when the baby suddenly “went floppy”.
Prosecutors said it was likely he injured her by shaking or throwing her against a surface, such as a cot, in anger.