{"id":12859,"date":"2018-10-26T13:00:27","date_gmt":"2018-10-26T17:00:27","guid":{"rendered":"http:\/\/worldjusticenews.com\/news\/?p=12859"},"modified":"2018-10-26T13:00:27","modified_gmt":"2018-10-26T17:00:27","slug":"cot-designer-jailed-over-babys-death","status":"publish","type":"post","link":"https:\/\/worldjusticenews.com\/news\/2018\/10\/26\/cot-designer-jailed-over-babys-death\/","title":{"rendered":"Cot designer jailed over baby’s death"},"content":{"rendered":"

A bed firm boss who designed a cot in which a seven-month-old baby “choked to death” has been jailed for three years and four months.<\/p>\n

Craig Williams’s Playtime Beds Ltd sold the cot bed where Oscar Abbey got stuck trying to crawl through a gap.<\/p>\n

Oscar’s lifeless body was found by his parents caught in the bed at their home in York on 3 November 2016.<\/p>\n

Williams, 37, from Rotherham, South Yorkshire, pleaded guilty to two charges at Leeds Crown Court.<\/p>\n

The father of three admitted a health and safety failing to discharge the employer’s general duty and a fraud charge.<\/p>\n

A jury in his trial was asked to return a not guilty verdict to gross negligence manslaughter.<\/p>\n

Judge Martin Spencer said Williams, of Park View Road, had a “significant responsibility” for Oscar’s death, less than a week after he first started using the bed.<\/p>\n

The judge told Williams: “You should bear the brunt of that responsibility for the rest of your life.”<\/p>\n

Williams’s employee, Joseph Bruce, 31, of Kimberworth Park Road, Rotherham, was jailed for six months after admitting fraud.<\/p>\n

\"Joseph<\/span>
Employee Joseph Bruce was jailed for six months after admitting fraud<\/span><\/figcaption><\/figure>\n

 <\/p>\n

Oscar’s parents, Charlie and Shannon Abbey, paid \u00a3655 including delivery costs for the cot bed, which featured a slide.<\/p>\n

Prosecutor John Elvidge QC told the court Williams had assured them it was suitable for children aged six or seven months.<\/p>\n

Oscar had effectively “choked to death” after “wriggling his body through the holes at the front of his cot bed”, jurors heard.<\/p>\n

Mr Elvidge said Williams had demonstrated “an utterly indifferent attitude towards the safety of small children, even after he had been visited by police in relation to Oscar’s death”.<\/p>\n

Williams had continued to make the beds and did not modify his designs, the court heard.<\/p>\n

They went on to sell the same cots after Oscar’s death under a new company, Magical Dream Beds.<\/p>\n

\"Bed<\/span>
Oscar Abbey died of positional asphyxia after he got his head stuck, the court heard<\/span><\/figcaption><\/figure>\n

 <\/p>\n

Judge Spencer said: “It is pure fortune that no other child did die, and that is no thanks to [Williams] or Mr Bruce.”<\/p>\n

Williams had shown a “flagrant disregard” for adhering to safety regulations and had committed a “wicked fraud” by continuing to sell beds, the judge added.<\/p>\n

Following sentencing, North Yorkshire Police said the pair were “solely motivated by money and were willing to sacrifice children’s safety in the pursuit of it”.<\/p>\n

Det Supt Nigel Costello described them as “selfish and callous individuals”.<\/p>\n

In a statement read during the trial, Mr Abbey, 24, said he found his son trapped face-down in the front of the cot.<\/p>\n

“It looked like he’d tried to crawl out backwards but his head was stuck,” he said.<\/p>\n

Mrs Abbey, 23, described in her statement how she woke up and heard her husband “shouting and screaming: ‘He’s not breathing’.”<\/p>\n

“I ran to the landing and Charlie was holding Oscar in both arms,” she said.<\/p>\n

Source: bbc.co.uk<\/a><\/p>\n","protected":false},"excerpt":{"rendered":"

A bed firm boss who designed a cot in which a seven-month-old baby “choked to death” has been jailed for three years and four months. Craig Williams’s Playtime Beds Ltd sold the cot bed where […]<\/a><\/div>\n","protected":false},"author":1,"featured_media":12860,"comment_status":"open","ping_status":"open","sticky":false,"template":"","format":"standard","meta":{"pmpro_default_level":"","footnotes":""},"categories":[2,4],"tags":[5656,5655,5657,5270,5659,2762,5658],"class_list":{"0":"post-12859","1":"post","2":"type-post","3":"status-publish","4":"format-standard","5":"has-post-thumbnail","7":"category-news","8":"category-uk","9":"tag-cot-death","10":"tag-craig-williams","11":"tag-joseph-bruce","12":"tag-leeds-crown-court","13":"tag-oscar-abbey","14":"tag-rotherham","15":"tag-york","16":"pmpro-has-access"},"_links":{"self":[{"href":"https:\/\/worldjusticenews.com\/news\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/12859","targetHints":{"allow":["GET"]}}],"collection":[{"href":"https:\/\/worldjusticenews.com\/news\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts"}],"about":[{"href":"https:\/\/worldjusticenews.com\/news\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/types\/post"}],"author":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/worldjusticenews.com\/news\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/users\/1"}],"replies":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/worldjusticenews.com\/news\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/comments?post=12859"}],"version-history":[{"count":1,"href":"https:\/\/worldjusticenews.com\/news\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/12859\/revisions"}],"predecessor-version":[{"id":12861,"href":"https:\/\/worldjusticenews.com\/news\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/12859\/revisions\/12861"}],"wp:featuredmedia":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/worldjusticenews.com\/news\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/media\/12860"}],"wp:attachment":[{"href":"https:\/\/worldjusticenews.com\/news\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/media?parent=12859"}],"wp:term":[{"taxonomy":"category","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/worldjusticenews.com\/news\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/categories?post=12859"},{"taxonomy":"post_tag","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/worldjusticenews.com\/news\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/tags?post=12859"}],"curies":[{"name":"wp","href":"https:\/\/api.w.org\/{rel}","templated":true}]}}