Stoke mum fighting to change the law to protect children from button batteries

It's after her daughter died from swallowing one back in 2021

Harper-Lee
Author: Adam SmithPublished 6th Jan 2025
Last updated 6th Jan 2025

A mum from Stoke-on-Trent whose little girl died after swallowing a button battery says she wants to change the law to stop any other family going through the same tradegy.

Harper-Lee Fanthorpe, aged two, died after swallowing a small battery from a remote control back in May 2021.

"I won't stop until we've got what we need." said Harper's mum Stacy-Marie, from Bentilee.

Stacy-Marie

Stacy said: "In hospital they turned around and said we've found a button battery in her chest and it's burnt through her oesophagus, and it's burnt through one of her arteries and gone to her heart.

"What we saw from Harper has actually given me PTSD, so I don't want any other mums, dads, or parents to ever go through or see what we had to see."

She continued: "We're still finding them in everything. It's like people are listening, but they don't want to take that precaution to make them safer."

Tougher enforcement

"What we want now is so everything that is from here, even from abroad, has to go through Trading Standards. If Trading Standards don't see the product fit then it's gone." said Stacy.

"We want everything made with a screw in the back that contains button batteries.

"We're trying to get them out of non-essential goods like birthday cards, they're only covered by a piece of paper in birthday cards. Is that 59p birthday card worth a child's life? Children's toothbrushes, we don't need a button battery in a toothbrush."

Stacy added: "We're looking to get the legislation changed."

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