A cot designer has been jailed for more than three years after a baby boy died in a bed he made.
Seven-month-old Oscar Abbey was found with his head trapped in the holes on the side of the £655 cot bed.
Craig Williams, the owner of the company that sold the bed to the boy’s parents, Charlie and Shannon Abbey, admitted on Wednesday to fraud and failing to discharge an employer’s general duty. He has been jailed for three years and four months.
During a two-week trial at Leeds crown court, jurors heard that Oscar’s parents found his body after he got his head stuck while trying to crawl through a gap in the bed in November 2016.
Williams, who designed and built the bespoke cot bed, has been on trial for manslaughter by gross negligence and for fraud. The 37-year-old owner of Sheffield-based Playtime Beds Ltd had denied both charges after the boy’s death. On Wednesday a jury was asked to return a not guilty verdict to the manslaughter charge as Williams entered two guilty pleas.
The trial heard how Oscar’s parents, from York, bought the bunk bed for Oscar and his two-year-old brother, Maxwell, in October 2016. But five days after Oscar started using the bed, on 3 November 2016, the incident happened.
Judge Martin Spencer, sentencing, told Williams he had a “significant responsibility” for Oscar’s death, adding: “You should bear the brunt of that responsibility for the rest of your life.”
He said the defendant had shown a “flagrant disregard” for British safety standards and committed a “wicked fraud” by continuing to sell beds after the boy’s death. An employee of Williams, Joseph Bruce, of Rotherham, was jailed for six months after admitting a single count of fraud.
During the trial, jurors heard a statement from Charlie Abbey in which he described the moment he discovered his son’s body. He said: “I instantly realised he’d gone. It looked like he’d tried to crawl out backwards but his head was stuck.”
In her own statement, Shannon Abbey said: “I heard Charlie shouting and screaming: ‘He’s not breathing.’ I ran to the landing and Charlie was holding Oscar in both arms.”
