Woman Tries New Strategy to Kill Bedbugs, Admits to Manslaughter After 11-Year-Old Neighbor Soon Drops Dead
Editor’s Note: Our readers responded strongly to this story when it originally ran; we’re reposting it here in case you missed it.
A London woman will not face jail time after admitting a chemical she used to kill bedbugs led to the death of an 11-year-old neighbor.
In 2021, Jesmin Akter, 34, used aluminum phosphide to address a bedbug infestation in her east London flat, according to Sky News. She brought the chemical from Italy, where it had been brought by her mother from Bangladesh.
Akter took her family out of the flat for 24 hours, but while she was gone, the chemical mixed with moisture to create phosphine, which is poisonous.
As a result, a neighbor’s child, Fatiha Sabrin was killed on the day she turned 11 years old.
Jesmin Akter has admitted killing 11-year-old Fatiha Sabrin while trying to eliminate bedbugs in her home with chemicals she illegally imported into the country from Italy.
Akter, 33, scattered aluminium phosphide around her flat in Shadwell, east London on 26 November 2021. pic.twitter.com/aDAoimzG75— CourtNewsUK (@CourtNewsUK) May 20, 2024
Akter admitted to manslaughter by committing an unlawful act and importing a regulated substance. She received a two-year suspended sentence and was ordered to perform 150 hours of unpaid work.
At Akter’s sentencing, Judge Alexia Durran said: “Fatiha died on her 11th birthday. It is now a date that haunts her family,” according to the BBC.
“The sentence I impose will not bring Fatiha back and will seem inadequate to Fatiha’s family.”
“I understand you are overwhelmed with crippling guilt. It seems highly unlikely you will ever forget what happened to Fatiha was the result of your actions,” the judge said.
“A young life full of promise has been lost,” she said.
Durran noted that the landlord had failed to solve the problem, according to the U.K.’s Guardian.
“The landlord had taken some action, but it appears to have been rather cursory, and the employees used to carry out the fumigation in the past do not appear to have been well trained or trained at all,” she said.
However, bringing the chemical aboard a plane from Italy could have led to a “catastrophic mid-air incident and put hundreds of lives at risk” if any had been released, she said.
The court was told that other children in the area were unwell after the chemical was used.
On the day the girl died, she woke up at 4 a.m. with symptoms that included vomiting.
At 9:30, first responders were called, who advised her to take anti-diarrhea medicine. They were called again at 1:30. By 3:30 p.m., the girl had stopped breathing.
She was declared dead by 5 p.m.
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