SDA couple jailed over son's death

A UK-based Zimbabwean couple whose baby boy died from acute rickets after they prayed for his recovery rather than seek medical help were jailed yesterday.

Nkosiyapha and Virginia Kunene, members of the Seventh-day Adventist Church, believed that whether five-month-old Ndingeko would live or die was "God's will", the Old Bailey heard.

According to UK Daily Mail, the couple, strict vegetarians due to their beliefs, had known their son was unwell for two months but chose prayer over medical treatment.

After his death, tests showed Ndingeko had been suffering from rickets - a disease common in Victorian times caused by severe lack of vitamin D and associated with a poor diet and lack of sunlight.

The court heard that from his birth at Darent Valley Hospital in Kent on January 1, 2012, Ndingeko had medical problems.

But vitamin D deficiency was not diagnosed at that stage and his mother was not given advice about supplements - even though she is a vegan and was breastfeeding her son.

As a vegan, her diet would have lacked the calcium and vitamin D - found in foods such as oily fish and eggs - needed to help keep his bones strong.

The mother did not attend a scheduled check-up on March 8 and Ndingeko was not seen by a health care professional from then on.

The father, a nurse, realised when he returned home from work on June 14 that Ndingeko might die and still did not call for medical assistance, the court heard. His wife said she wanted to seek medical attention but he said it would be a sin.

The Zimbabwean-born couple, from Erith, Kent, admitted manslaughter. Nkosiyapha Kunene, 36, was jailed for three years and his 32-year-old wife for two years and three months.

Judge Mr Justice Singh told them: "The right to manifest one's religion is not absolute. The state has a particularly important duty to protect the right to life, especially when a young child is concerned."

He added: "Both defendants are strict Seventh-day Adventists, but their views appear to be very extreme and don't reflect the official doctrine of that church."

He said he had heard evidence that the hospital played a part in failing properly to advise the couple and prescribe Vitamin D supplements, and noted that a serious case review into health services failures in the case had not yet been completed.

Sallie Bennett-Jenkins QC, defending Virginia Kunene, said: "By her plea, she has confronted the reality that she failed her child, not through wilfulness and desire to harm, but quite the reverse, by the virtue that it would be a breach of the covenant made between her husband, her, and her church, and the abandonment of sincerely held religious views."

Miss Bennett-Jenkins added: "Virginia Kunene has been let down by a failure of medical institutions to give the required advice, prescriptions, and additional supplements out to a vegan, African mother giving birth in the winter months, particularly where it was known that the mother was exclusively breastfeeding."

Kerim Fuad QC, for Nkosiyapha Kunene, told the court that had the Vitamin D deficiency been diagnosed, the parents would have been alert to the need to be vigilant, but Vitamin D levels were not tested until after Ndingeko's death.

"Rarely does the court have before it such a gentle, humble, law-abiding and peace loving couple," he said.

"The loss of their son haunts them, and will do, for the rest of their lives."