Posted on 16 November 2010

CPS takes no action over boy’s death

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The Crown Prosecution Service has said that staff who gave a five-year-old boy a fatal overdose will not face any criminal charges.

The CPS has written to the family of Bailey Ratcliffe, to say that, after an investigation by West Yorkshire Police and prosecutors, there is insufficient evidence to charge staff at Dewsbury District Hospital with gross negligence manslaughter. Bailey, from Dewsbury, died after being given seven times the correct dose of anti-epileptic drug phenytoin.

The CPS wrote to Bailey’s family to say that it was clear that Bailey’s death was due to the excessive amount of phenytoin which he had been given, that the death was tragic and shocking, but that it was still not possible to charge the individuals responsible.

Alison Storey, reviewing lawyer from the CPS Special Crime Division, said: “The law sets an extremely high evidential hurdle for bringing charges for this offence as the prosecution must prove that individuals caused the death by grossly breaching their duty of care to the person who died. I concluded that it was not possible to prove this to the required standard in this case.”

She said that while a doctor and two nurses had breached their duty of care towards Bailey, it would not be possible to prove that they did so in such a way that their actions became criminal “with such indifference to the obvious and serious risk to Bailey’s life”.

The family have reacted with anger to the news that nobody will be prosecuted for the error, Carrianne Ratcliffe, Bailey’s mother said: “It has destroyed our lives. It's disgusting.”