Boy who slipped into coma after being given drug removed from family care

A little boy who slipped into a coma after being given a “potentially life-threatening” dose of a drug used in the treatment of epilepsy must live with a foster carer, a family court judge has ruled.

Judge Kambiz Moradifar has also decided that three other children in the family must go into council care.

The judge had initially analysed the case more than a year ago when he concluded that either the little boy’s father or the father’s then-partner had administered the drug when the youngster was two.

He has now made decisions about where the boy and other children in the family should live in the long term.

Doctors had told how the little boy, who is now three, had suffered two fits and needed to be put on a ventilator.

Blood tests showed that he had ingested a “very large quantity” of carbamazepine.

His father and then partner had denied administering the drug.

It had been suggested that another child in the family might had been responsible but Judge Moradifar said the evidence did not support such a scenario.

The judge said a feature of the boy’s father’s life was the use of “illicit drugs”.

Detail of the case has emerged in written rulings following private family court hearings in Reading, Berkshire.

The judge has not identified the family involved.

Social workers with welfare responsibilities for children in the family had asked the judge to make decisions about the youngsters’ futures.

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