MOTHER VAGUE ON DRUG DETAILS

Accused Denies She Gave Her Son Fatal Codeine Dose

A Toronto woman charged in the codeine overdose of her 10-month-old
son - the same drug she was prescribed weeks before his death - told
her trial she forgot the name of the medicine when she was interviewed
by Toronto police detectives.

When Natasha Sanderson was interviewed by detectives Keith Bradshaw
and Scott McMurdo about the Feb. 27, 1998 death of her son Khaleel,
she told them that weeks before he died, she had been prescribed a
painkiller after getting her tonsils out.

Her Toronto trial heard that the detectives asked her what form the
painkiller came in, and she said liquid. She didn't say the drug was
codeine, although she wasn't asked to name the medicine during the
July 3, 1998, interview.

In a subsequent interview the same day as Sanderson's, her roommate
told police the medicine was codeine.

"You didn't remember the name?" crown prosecutor Margo MacKinnon asked
Sanderson on Friday.

"No, I didn't," was her reply.

"We've heard you were a good student. Did it surprise you that you
didn't remember the name?" MacKinnon asked.

Sanderson said no, adding that she didn't feel she had to remember the
name of the drug after being given it.

Sanderson has pleaded not guilty to criminal negligence causing death.
Khaleel was found with more than a therapeutic dosage of codeine in
his bloodstream. He stopped breathing while riding a bus with
Sanderson and her roommate as they headed home from school that day.

She has repeatedly denied giving him the drug.

During her second day on the stand Friday, Sanderson admitted she
didn't educate herself completely about the uses and dosages of the
medicines - codeine and penicillin - that she got after her tonsils
were taken out.

Sanderson admitted to MacKinnon she didn't know important details
about codeine, including that it's a narcotic and prescriptions can't
be repeated because it's addictive.

But she bristled when MacKinnon suggested she didn't know enough about
medications, which led to her giving codeine to her own son.

"I'm not stupid enough to give him something that doesn't belong to
him," Sanderson shot back, adding that she had a lot of support from
her mother and doctor, and could easily have turned to them.

But MacKinnon continued, suggesting Sanderson underestimated how
powerful codeine could be to Khaleel.

"You had no reason to think a little bit of codeine would have this
disastrous result?"

"I had no reason to give it to him," she said.

The trial has heard that Sanderson was in a school program that helped
special students such as teenage mothers get high school diplomas.
Some students were allowed to bring their children to a separate room
to be supervised, as was the case for Khaleel.

The crown and defence lawyer Barry Swadron are to give their closing
addresses today. Mr. Justice Michael Dambrot of the Superior Court of
Justice is to give his instructions to the jury Wednesday, after which
jurors will begin deliberations.