A nursery, its director and a staff member will be sentenced over the death of a 14-month-old boy who suffocated while staff tried to make him fall asleep.
Noah Sibanda died after the incident at Fairytales Day Nursery in Bourne Street, Dudley, West Midlands, having been physically restrained face down on a cushion with a blanket over his face and a leg placed over him, the Crown Prosecution Service (CPS) previously said.
Nursery practitioner Kimberley Cookson, 23, admitted gross negligence manslaughter in relation to her actions in trying to make the toddler sleep on December 9 2022.
Last month, Fairytales Day Nursery Limited admitted one count of corporate manslaughter and a Health and Safety at Work Act offence at Wolverhampton Crown Court.
Director and business owner Deborah Latewood, 55, also admitted a Health and Safety at Work Act offence on the basis that she did not know – but should have known – children were being put down to sleep in a dangerous way.
The CPS said the incident, which was captured on CCTV at the nursery, saw Noah tightly wrapped in a sleeping bag with a blanket over his head and laid face down to sleep by Cookson.
She is said to have held the toddler face down on a cushion and restrained him with her leg for some of that time, in what the CPS said appeared to be an effort to “make him sleep when he did not want to”.
Noah was then found not to be breathing and 999 was called but he was pronounced dead in hospital.
Cookson, Latewood and the nursery, which is now closed, will be sentenced by Mr Justice Choudhury at Wolverhampton Crown Court on Thursday.
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