Sophie Burgess pictured as a newborn with her parents Emma and Gareth Burgess.
Sophie Burgess pictured as a newborn with her parents Emma and Gareth Burgess.
Grieving parents have accused National Health Service doctors of a cover-up after their baby daughter was given a fatal drug overdose.
Sophie Burgess was just 11 months old when she died at St Peter's Hospital in Chertsey, Surrey, after receiving almost eight times the recommended dose of a powerful anti-seizure drug.
But evidence allegedly vanished from the side ward where she died, while pages of medical notes from her records went missing, according to the family.
Meanwhile, her heartbroken parents Gareth and Emma were investigated by police, the Daily Mail reported.
Just hours after losing their daughter, their house was declared a crime scene and forensic officers seized Sophie's bedding and toys "in case they later became relevant".
The Burgesses believe police were called to cover failings at the hospital - and say they have been fighting 'tooth and nail' to find the truth.
Their barrister, Clodagh Bradley QC, accused Syrian-trained Dr Lojein Hatahet and Dr Fiona MacCarthy, a paediatric consultant, of the cover-up.
She said: "They are giving accounts that contradict medical records, they contradict witnesses and they have something to lose - criminal charges potentially being brought against them."
The allegations were made at a pre-inquest review on Thursday, ahead of a full hearing in June. Sophie was given the overdose of anti-epileptic drug phenytoin after being rushed to A&E following a seizure on June 16 last year.
St Peter's Hospital, Chertsey, Surrey where 11-month-old Sophie Burgess died after doctors at gave her a massive overdose of the powerful anti-seizure drug phenytoin.
Miss Bradley said Dr MacCarthy, who had prescribed the drug, called police after Sophie died and added: "Our concern is whether someone who knew they had made a serious error was trying to deflect attention from the medical management, which led to a loss of evidence."
Mr Burgess, 45, a graphic artist, told The Mail on Sunday of the heartbreaking moment Dr Hatahet injected his daughter.
He said: "Sophie started to be sick. I tried to turn her over but I couldn't because Dr Hatahet was standing over her and just carried on injecting her.
"Sophie started to cough and splutter, her eyes were fluttering and she was going rigid. She looked like a rabbit in the headlights. I felt completely powerless.
"That morning she had called me 'Dada' for the first time. Now she was looking at me with this frightened expression. I will never forget it. She must have been in so much pain."
Medics tried for an hour to resuscitate her but to no avail. An initial post-mortem concluded Sophie died from cardiac arrest, but when toxicology results came back several weeks later, the overdose was revealed.
An NHS report said Sophie had 7.65 times the recommended dose of phenytoin in her blood.
Mrs Burgess, 40, who works in marketing for drugs companies, said: "I strongly believe it's a drug Sophie should never have had, and they gave her a massive amount."
The doctors declined to comment, while a spokesman said the hospital offered "sincere sympathies to Sophie Burgess's family, alongside our apologies for her tragic death".
