Mother of 5 poisons son to death by pouring liquid morphine, prescription drugs in his drink, gets 10-year jail
Devon: A mother reportedly hugged her dying son after pouring liquid morphine into his alcohol, while participating in an alcohol and drug-infused binge with him. Tyler Peck died in February 2019 after his mother, Holly Strawbridge, plied him with liquid morphine, prescription drugs, and alcohol, an inquest heard.
The inquest also heard that the 34-year-old mother gave a cocktail of drugs and booze to her 15-year-old son at their family home in Salcombe, Devon in England as her husband Gavin and her four younger children were asleep upstairs. Peck died after having an overdose of high levels of oramorph, liquid morphine, and gabapentin, a strong painkiller, senior Plymouth and South Devon official Ian Arrow revealed on Wednesday, April 8.
Reports also claimed that the medications were prescribed to Strawbridge for her medical needs.
The mother-of-five is currently serving a jail term of ten years for child neglect and supplying class A drugs after sharing them with her son and his friend who was under 16 in her kitchen. She was jailed in January 2020 after Plymouth Crown Court, Judge Paul Darlow found her guilty of "wilful ill-treatment" of her son.
"It can't be said that the events of that night were a one-off, tragic incident where nothing of the sort had ever happened before," Judge Darlow told Strawbridge, adding she had a "misguided pride" in her house being a place where teenagers could come and "get hammered", he had said.
The inquest was held on a "rather unusual" conference call, due to coronavirus lockdown in place. Officer Ian Arrow heard that after the binge, which also involved sniffing aerosols and smoking cannabis, Peck went to sleep in his mother’s living room. However, because of the high intake of drugs and alcohol, his central nervous system became depressed which affected his breathing and he slipped into a coma and died.
According to reports, lead paramedic Benjamin Nicholson rushed to the scene and discovered that Peck had suffered a heart attack. He was reportedly given chest compressions as he lay on the living room floor following lunchtime. However, as his mother hugged him on the floor, the paramedics stopped the CPR and he was pronounced dead at 11.58 am on February 2, 2019.
The court heard that an autopsy done on the teenager’s body found the level of gabapentin in Tyler's blood as more than 40mg per liter, as well as 0.15mg per liter of morphine. The post-mortem report described the level of gabapentin - a drug used to prevent seizures and certain types of pain, as "very high", lying within the range of "acute overdose".
The inquest stated that Peck's morphine levels could cause death in "naive users or individuals with limited tolerance to opiate drugs". Codeine, MDMA, MDA, diazepam,and alcohol were also found in his blood. “Over a period of years, Holly [Strawbridge] has actively supported her son in consuming alcohol, and both illicit and prescribed drugs," Det Con Mike Lugger said in the court.
He also mentioned that Strawbridge “should have been the one person that Tyler could rely on to protect him from harm, but this was not the case."