The woman in this story cannot be named or her picture shown by order of the High Court.
A mother has been found guilty of child neglect after purposefully making her children sick so she could take them for more than 100 unnecessary medical checks.
She was accused of doing it for the attention during her trial this week in the Auckland High Court.
Police began investigating the mother in October 2015 after her son was taken to hospital struggling to breathe. She had taken three videos of him on her phone to show the medical staff.
Looking back they found the mother had presented her daughter more than 100 times between 2012 and 2014 for alleged fevers, rashes and seizures, which the Crown said were "lies".
The mother also was accused of forcing her son and daughter to ingest drugs colchicine, limotrigine and midazolam, as well as a coin and a button battery.
The defendant also allegedly deliberately suffocated her children to warrant medical visits.
On Friday a jury found the woman was guilty on six of the charges of ill treatment or neglect of a child, and not guilty of two charges of ill treatment or neglect of a child.
Crown prosecutor Mark Harborow said she "thrived on interacting with medical professionals. She thrived on the buzz of the emergency - the blood was pumping, adrenalin flowing. Sirens, lights... everything.
"She suffocated her son twice in a 24-hour-period. Not only did she do that, but she videoed him as he lay lifeless struggling to breathe. Why? We don't know.
"Perhaps she wanted to re-engage with the medical world - a world she had been very much a part of with her daughter. Perhaps she wanted attention. She got attention but it wasn't in the way she envisaged - the police became involved and it all unravelled for her."
Defence lawyer Susan Gray argued the defendant's children did suffer from genuine illnesses to which her client reacted.
"She is an extremely anxious mother, she overreacted, she catastrophised and she may have behaved in a way different to other parents.
"She's one of those parents who rush off to the hospital at the sign of a snuffle. That behaviour is magnified because of her behavioural issues.
"It's possible she was doing her conscientious best - it may not always have been the right thing to do but she was doing her conscientious best."
Newshub.
from Don T Breathe - Google News http://ift.tt/2fDJqYO
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