Woman gets 1 year jail for causing infant's death

A housewife has been given a suspended one-year imprisonment by the Court of First Instance on the charges of negligence in taking care of a baby girl under two years of age and unintentionally causing her death.
The 31-year-old Pakistani woman was running a nursery from her home, and the baby - aged one year and eight months - left in her care, fell off a couch and sustained serious fatal head injuries.
She has been accused of negligence towards a child left in her care, and unintentionally causing her death.
The court ordered the defendant to pay Dh200,000 in blood money to the baby girl's parents.
The girl's father, a Pakistani computer engineer, 32, said that his wife wanted to put their daughter at the defendant's house after she found a job. "We visited her home and found it was clean and tidy and there were toys in it. We found it appropriate for children."
They left their daughter only twice at the defendant's house in International City. The second time they dropped the baby at her house was on July 12, 2015, the couple left her around 7:30 am.
"Our baby was in good health and the woman was sending us her pictures on WhatsApp. On our way to pick her up at 3pm, the defendant called us several times to inform us that the girl was not well at all and that we should come to pick her up quickly."
The couple found their daughter hardly breathing and not able to open her eyes.
They carried her to a nearby health centre and gave her oxygen to help her breathing. And then took her to a hospital by ambulance.
The defendant told them that their daughter was crying so she went to the kitchen to bring water for her. She came back and found she fell down on her head. The girl died around 3am the following day at the Intensive Care Unit due to internal bleeding and liver and heart failure.
The girl's mother, a 22-year-old Moroccan, said that she knew the defendant through an ad the latter posted on a website.
"She did not have an official authorisation but it was a private business. She was to charging Dh650 for keeping our daughter in the morning while we were at work."
The mother said that she learnt from the accused that she was taking care of four other children.
According to the forensic report, the girl had two bruises in her head and that her injury made her unconscious and caused the oxygen not to reach the blood.
A defendant's suspension of executing his/her jail sentence remains for three years.
mary@khaleejtimes.com

• Dubai