A baby ingested cocaine in a Scot couple’s home where traces of the drug were found in plastic milk bottles.
Police were left shocked after visiting the home of Paul Stirling, 28, and Ashley Jane Kerr, 36, which was in a “horrendous” state.
Powerful tramadol painkillers were found lying around along with piles of rubbish, knives, blades, and fragments of glass.
Baby bottles in the council home in Livingston, West Lothian, were analysed and found to contain traces of cocaine.
Tests were then carried out on a baby who had been in the address and cocaine was found in their hair, blood and urine.
Edinburgh Sheriff Court heard on Tuesday how the traces were “particularly high in the hair, indicating his repeated exposure to cocaine”.
Stirling and Kerr pled guilty to wilfully ill-treating, and neglecting three children, who had been in their home, by allowing it to become untidy, dirty and strewn with waste material.
The pair admitted exposing the youngsters to hazardous items, and unsanitary and dangerous conditions.
Stirling also admitted failing to seek timely medical care for one child and to causing the baby to ingest cocaine from bottles of milk.
Fiscal depute Alan Wickham told the court the home had been found in an “abject condition” and was a “horrendous environment” for youngsters to be exposed to.
Mr Wickham said a child had been in the home with Stirling in June 2018 when he called NHS 24 to report the youngster had “stopped breathing”.
The court heard Stirling reported the child had choked on their own vomit and their lips had “turned blue”.
Mr Wickham said Stirling told the operator he’d cleared the child's airway with his hand and the youngster had “returned to normal”.
The court was told the operator advised Stirling to take the child to A&E at St John’s Hospital in Livingston.
The prosecutor said Stirling called NHS 24 again 90 minutes later to say the child was “fine” and hadn’t attended the hospital.
The operator told him a health visitor would be alerted as he’d been advised twice to go to A&E.
Mr Wickham said Stirling later admitted to cops he didn’t take the child to A&E.
Police later visited the home in November 2019 and officers found it “extremely cluttered with little floor space to walk on”.
They found blister packets of tramadol lying around in several places, a knife under a sofa cushion, and flies in the kitchen which had no clean work surfaces.
Glass fragments were found in an upstairs hallway while Mr Wickham said the master bedroom was the “most cluttered room”. He said access to it was “virtually impossible” and the debris lying around was “knee high”.
The court was told four baby bottles were taken and sent for analysis, with three of them testing positive for cocaine.
Samples were taken of the baby’s hair, urine and blood, Mr Wickham said, and cocaine, along with substances produced when the body breaks down the drug, were found.
The prosecutor said the hair sample indicated “repeated exposure to cocaine”.
Stirling, of Fauldhouse, West Lothian, and Kerr, of Livingston, pled guilty to the charge which ran from September 2017 to November 2019.
Sheriff Ian Anderson deferred sentence on the pair until next month for reports.
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