BABY DIED 'AFTER BEING FED METHADONE'

The baby of a former heroin addict died after being fed methadone by
one of his parents, a coronial inquest heard yesterday.

Two-month-old Ewan McKinlay was pronounced dead at Camden Hospital on
Saturday, January 24, 1998, after his parents realised he had stopped
breathing as he slept in a cot in their bedroom following a night of
restless crying.

Westmead Coroner's Court heard the baby's mother, Ms Julie Cicolini,
then a methadone and Valium user, had at one stage told police she or
her partner, Ian McKinlay, could have given Ewan methadone by mistake,
thinking it was his own medicine.

"Maybe, maybe it could have happened because we were both half asleep
and whatever, and we blamed each other ... It was done by mistake and
obviously neither of us is going to remember," Ms Cicolini told police.

In statements to police, the pair had said they put the baby to bed
about 10pm, but moved him into their room about 3am because he was
restless.

Detective Sergeant Stephen Thomas told the court yesterday he did not
believe the methadone could have been given in error as Ms Cicolini
had told him she stored it away from the baby's medicines and its
bottle was distinctive.

Both parents had denied giving the child the drug, but were the only
people who had come into contact with him the night before his death,
Sergeant Thomas said.

Police had initially believed the baby's death was from SIDS, but
scientific reports later revealed he had died from "acute toxicity due
to methadone", probably administered about 3am the morning he died.

In court yesterday, the baby's distressed parents heard that in his
short life, their son was sickly, born opiate dependent and treated
for that condition until December 1, 1997.

In the days leading up to his death his mother took him to a number of
doctors and he was prescribed painkillers for colic and a hernia, for
which he needed an operation.

Forensic pharmacologist Dr Judith Pearl said the parents would have
been under severe stress at the time of the baby's death, since his
medical conditions meant he would have been crying constantly.

The hearing continues today.