Bristol junkie mum loses appeal over jail term for baby's drug death

A junkie mum, who binged on drugs as her baby son died from an overdose of crack cocaine, heroin and methadone, has failed in an appeal against her five-year jail term.

Sabrina Ross, aged 31, left 14-month-old Rio alone as she first left her flat to buy drugs and then shared crack cocaine and heroin with a friend in another room.

In June, the former prostitute and long-term addict, who lived in Wordsworth Road, Horfield, was sentenced to five years in prison after admitting manslaughter at the city's Crown Court.

Upholding her prison term at the Court of Appeal, Lord Justice Thomas said her offending had involved "gross negligence" in her duties as a mother to her son.

Ross thought she had beaten her drug addiction, but relapsed in the months before her son's death because she found she could not cope with the trauma of her partner's terminal illness.

On one occasion, she saw Rio, who was born addicted to methadone, playing with a bottle of the legal heroin substitute as he lay on a bed at the flat.

On the night he died, she admitted having left him alone three times as she bought drugs and found him dead when she woke up the following morning.

Tests showed he had suffered "significant exposure" to methadone, cocaine and heroin at various times in preceding months.

Breast feeding by an addict mother could account for some, but not all, of his exposure, experts said.

Ross admitted responsibility for his death. She admitted that she had smoked drugs when her son was in the same house and that she should have taken precautions to stop him from being exposed to drugs, because she knew that he was "into everything".

Her barrister, Fiona Elder, argued before Lord Justice Thomas, Mr Justice Sweeney and Judge Elgan Edwards that the five-year term was "manifestly excessive", but had her case rejected by the judges.

"It is clear, on the evidence before the learned sentencing judge, that no proper steps had been taken to prevent the child having access to lethal drugs," said Lord Justice Thomas.

"It is also clear she smoked crack cocaine in the presence of the child."

Although she had previously been a good and caring mother, there had been a "gross failure" to prevent his access to the drugs and exposure by her smoking of crack cocaine, he added.

"It appears to us that the judge in this case looked at all the circumstances, considered all the material matters and the sentence that he passed was right in principle and of the right length."