Update: Suspended sentence for cot company boss

A 19-month-old girl almost died after being left hanging by her head through a gap in a faulty cot, a court heard today.

Ophelia Conant had crawled backwards through a gap in the cot but had got her head stuck – leaving her suspended in the air, Amersham Crown Court heard.

Ophelia’s mother Louise, from Holmer Green, only noticed something was wrong as her room had a video monitor in it.

The cot, which had been imported from China by Baumhaus Ltd – a furniture company based near Bicester – did not comply with British safety regulations, the court was told today.

Baumhaus Ltd has pleaded guilty to a charge of placing an unsafe product on the market, while the firm’s sole director, Phillip Dickens, has also admitted a similar charge.

Alex Greenwood, prosecuting, said: “The incident was extremely shocking, of course, and left red marks on the girl’s neck. She is described as crying for the next four hours.

“Had Miss Conant not intervened, the consequences can be imagined.”

Miss Conant complained about the fault to Buckinghamshire County Council’s Trading Standards team, and during the course of their investigation it emerged another mother, Deborah Turner, had had the same thing happen to her child with the same design of cot.

Mr Greenwood told the court Trading Standards forwarded the video footage of Ophelia Conant falling through the gap in the cot on April 22, 2013 – but the following day, Baumhaus sent another cot of the same design to a mother in Barrow-in-Furness. Mr Greenwood said the company had sent out the cot knowing there was a design fault.

He told the court: “It didn’t comply with the relevant British safety standards; the gap was larger than it should have been.”

Mr Greenwood said there was “no due diligence” on the part of Dickens or Baumhaus Ltd to make sure “all precautions” to detect any design flaws had been made, saying the only safety tests to be carried out were made in China.

He said: “There was no quality control in place in the UK. They were entirely reliant on a manufacturer in China to make sure they matched UK standards.”

Sunyana Sharma, mitigating, said Baumhaus had managed to recall 94 per cent of the cots they had sold after becoming aware of the design fault – an act which cost the company £350,000.

She said: “There is no suggestion the actions by Mr Dickens or the company have been deliberate. The culpability of both the company and director is limited to one of negligence. They never set out to harm or hurt any of the individuals; quite the contrary.”

She added the company had been “extremely compliant” during the investigation and would not be able to survive if Dickens were to be jailed as a result of the prosecution.

Judge Karen Holt adjourned sentencing until tomorrow morning. She said the maximum sentence for each offence is one of a year’s imprisonment and/or a £20,000 fine.