A mother has been jailed for five years for killing her nine-year-old son by putting salt in his hospital drip.

David Stocker died in Great Ormond Street Hospital in August 2001 from an overdose of 13 teaspoons of salt which his mother put into his drip feed.

…the court heard David was ill for months but doctors were unable to make him better because his mother was misleading them. Nicholas Hilliard, prosecuting, said the 13 teaspoons of salt poured into a milk drip feed was the last in a series of acts by mother Petrina Stocker.

Stocker had spiked two feed containers with around 18 teaspoons and the boy collapsed after the first one was given to him.

Stocker had put blood into urine samples and manufactured vomit samples, in addition to interfering with his intravenous drip. Mr Hilliard said: “The episode of salt poisoning was the last in a series of acts done in an attempt to fabricate aspects of David’s illness and to produce manufactured or misleading symptoms…”