The name and any identifying details of the woman in this story are suppressed by the High Court.
The mother charged with neglect for allegedly making her children sick has been accused of doing it for attention.
In closing statements to a High Court jury, Crown prosecutor Mark Harborow said the woman "thrived on interacting with medical professionals. She thrived on the buzz of the emergency - the blood was pumping, adrenalin flowing. Sirens, lights… everything."
Defence lawyer Susan Gray called it the perfect storm of anxiety and suspicion.
"Layer upon layer of suspicion does not equal proof beyond reasonable doubt," said Ms Gray.
"It's possible she was doing her conscientious best - it may not always have been the right thing to do but she was doing her conscientious best. That's not a crime. It may be parenting or caring issues but it's not a crime."
Police began investigating the mother in October 2015 after her son was taken to hospital struggling to breathe. She had taken three videos of him on her phone to show the medical staff.
The motive
The Crown has accused the mother of deliberately suffocating her child to disprove a paediatrician who did not believe her claims that he had been unwell.
"She suffocated her son twice in a 24-hour-period. Not only did she do that but she videoed him as he lay lifeless struggling to breathe. Why? We don't know," Mr Harborow said.
"Perhaps she wanted to re-engage with the medical world - a world she had been very much a part of with her daughter. Perhaps she wanted attention. She got attention but it wasn't in the way she envisaged - the police became involved and it all unravelled for her."
An over-anxious mother?
Ms Gray says the defendant's children did suffer from genuine illnesses to which her client reacted.
"She is an extremely anxious mother, she overreacted, she catastrophised and she may have behaved in a way different to other parents.
"She's one of those parents who rush off to the hospital at the sign of a snuffle. That behaviour is magnified because of her behavioural issues."
Charges
- Over 2012 -2014, the mother presents her daughter to medical staff more than a hundred times for alleged fevers, rashes and seizures, which the Crown says were "lies"."
No-one else saw the seizures. Not witnessed by any medical staff despite extensive time in hospital," Mr Harborow said.
The defendant said her partner at the time did not witness the attacks because he had been watching television.
Defence lawyer Susan Gray says many of the hospital appointments were pre-arranged by the medical staff rather than the mother herself - she said "evidence is more consistent with overreaction and anxiety than deliberate lying."
- The defendant is charged with causing her daughter to overdose on Limotrigine, a drug to treat epilepsy, over the period above.
- In May 2013, the defendant caused her daughter to ingest the drug Colchicine.
- The defendant is accused of causing her daughter to ingest a coin.
- In August 2015, the defendant is accused of causing her daughter to ingest the drug midazolam.
- This charge was discharged over the course of the trial.
- The defendant is accused of deliberately suffocating her son.
- The defendant is accused of deliberately suffocating her son on a second occasion.
Mr Harborow for the Crown said of the mother's demeanour "there's no particular sense of urgency".
"Instead of tending to her son's life-threatening condition, she elects to record him on her phone - not once, not twice, but three times."
- The defendant is accused of causing her son to ingest a button battery. The son was not in her care at this time but she was on a supervised visit.
Newshub.
