Giving a child a sleep aid need not yet be an attempt to inflict bodily harm. But how dangerous is Temazepam really?
LICHTENVOORDE - After two years of investigation, the court in Arnhem on Thursday had not yet figured out what Temazepam can or cannot do to a small child. A then 23-year-old mother from Lichtenvoorde allegedly regularly administered the sleep aid to her two-year-old daughter in April 2004. But in court she denied everything she had previously stated about sleeping pills. When questioned, the police had promised her that she would see her child again soon if she confessed smoothly. In the courtroom, part of that interrogation was shown on TV screen, and in it the young mother seemed to have smoothly admitted that she gave the child the sleeping pills each time. Now she said it was all fantasy. 'I am not on trial here but unjustly' she said.According to the indictment, even after her child had already been rushed to the hospital, she had still brought cottage cheese in which the drug was found. Apparently with the intention that the child would stay in the hospital longer because she could not handle the care at home. But in the appeal, her lawyer Mr. S. Weening argued this week that the hospital doctors totally contradicted each other. According to one, the child's life was saved with difficulty, according to the other she would have recovered even without treatment. Mr. Weening therefore wanted to call an expert to give a definitive answer on the actual risk of Temazepam.
The attorney general, Mr. G.J. de Haas, had found the information via the Internet that Temazepam would be very dangerous, especially for children. To even then have it ordered before an expert he called "unheard of" because the room has been running for two years and the woman has been in detention for that time. He demanded that same two-year prison sentence with deductions in addition to tbs. Attorney Weening thought it was pretty flimsy for a prosecutor to get his information for the indictment from a site where any layman can just put information on.
Psychologist J.R. Haas of the Pieter Baan Center stated in the lengthy hearing that the mother suffers from borderline personality disorder, which would only be curable with long-term treatment. The verdict will follow in two knowing.
