Sa’adiah Jamari, a freelance nurse who gave sleeping pills and other drugs to two children she was hired to babysit in 2016, appears to have no way out after losing her appeal against her conviction and seven-year prison sentence.
A High Court judge disregarded her claims that the poisons were inserted into the baby’s food by someone else. These poisons included the sleeping drug temazepam, the antihistamine chlorpheniramine, and alprazolam, a drug for treating anxiety disorders.
The court determined that some of the pills were standard prescriptions for the nurse’s personal use, while others were discovered in her home.
Judge Aedit Abdullah ruled that no one other than Sa’adiah had the opportunity or access to the drugs that were used to poison the baby girls.
Justice Abdullah also determined that a lower court judge did not err in condemning the 41-year-old, who is a divorced mother of two.
He also maintained the penalty issued, saying it was also appropriate.
Sa’adiah Jamari, 41, had been babysitter separately to a five-month-old and an 11-month-old in late 2016. The babies’ parents found that the children were unusually drowsy on several occasions.
When these two young children were taken to the hospital for evaluation, numerous medications were found in their systems.
Sa’adiah had been a registered nurse since 2002 and had also promoted her nursing services on Facebook. She responded to a post by the mother of one baby who said she desperately needed a babysitter. The woman had said she needed the sitter to look after her two kids, a five-year-old and a five-month-old.
From the very first day the babies were under her charge, things took a turn for the worse. The mother noticed that the younger daughter was “cranky” and “tossing around in bed” the first time Sa’adiah babysat the girls in early November 2016. The newborn was unlike her typical self.
During the High Court appeal, Sa’adiah insisted she was innocent. Instead, she accused the baby’s grandma of hiding small doses of the medication in the baby’s food.
The mother of a second baby that Sa’adiah also babysat noticed that the child seemed drowsy and had difficulty walking. She was admitted to the hospital and tested. A urine sample taken from this girl was found to have alprazolam among other substances.
Sa’adiah, aged 41, had sought a trial in the State Courts and was convicted guilty of two counts of inflicting bodily harm by giving poisons.
Each charge of causing hurt with poisons makes offenders liable to up to 10 years’ jail, a fine, and caning. As Sa’adiah is a woman, she cannot be caned.
She is out on $20,000 bail as she plans to file an application to the Court of Appeal on a question of public interest, her lawyers told the court. She must serve her sentence from May 17 if her application is not made in time.
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