Legal News
Mother Guilty of Force-feeding Death (14 October 2011)
Date: 14/10/2011
A mother has been found guilty of causing the death of her baby through force-feeding. Thirty-one-year-old Gloria Dwomoh, a nurse from East London, forced her ten-month-old daughter, Diamond, to take solid food from the age of six months. The jury was told how Miss Dwomoh fed Diamond liquidised food during the weaning process. Miss Dwomoh informed the court that she made up Diamond’s feeds in one jug before transferring small amounts into another jug that she used to feed the girl. Miss Dwomoh claimed that her intention was to give her daughter “nutrients rather than milk”. Miss Dwomoh explained to the court that she fed Diamond in the same way she and her siblings had been fed by their mother in Ghana.
Andrew Edis QC, prosecuting, said that the food Miss Dwomoh had given her daughter had gone down the “wrong way” for months and that the spout of the jug had been placed into the girl's mouth, effectively preventing her from closing it. The cause of Diamond’s death was pneumonia caused by food in her lungs. A case review discovered “weaknesses and shortcomings” in the actions of some of the agencies involved with the family. Laura Eades, who chairs Waltham Forest Safeguarding Children's Board, claimed that if best practice had been followed by the agencies, the risk Diamond faced would have been better recognised, and the family offered additional support and intervention. However, it was concluded that Diamond's death “was not predictable”. Miss Dwomoh is due to be sentenced in November.
Highly specialised child care law solicitors at Duncan Lewis represent parents, other family members, children, and children’s guardians in all public law proceedings.