Drug dealer who poisoned disabled boy, 9, with amphetamines is jailed for less than three years

A drug dealer who poisoned a disabled nine-year-old boy by spiking his can of Orangina with amphetamine has been jailed for less than three years.

Cruel Leon Weaver was filmed dropping speed into the drink before shaking it and saying to the boy: “Do you want some of this little man?" Yet the 40-year-old could be released in just over a year, half way through his 32-month prison sentence.

A court heard the boy - who suffers from cerebral palsy and epilepsy - wasn't taken to hospital until the following day but he suffered no serious ill effects and had just become "hyperactive".

Weaver's shocking actions only came to light when his partner began covertly filming him due to suspicions he had been cheating. The former RAF man was captured on camera encouraging the youngster, who had been left in his care, to drink the can containing the class B substance.

He admitted assault, ill treatment, neglect, abandonment of child/young person to cause unnecessary suffering/injury and possession of a controlled drug of Class B.

Sentencing, Judge David Hale said: “To deliberately give amphetamine to a nine-year-old, grossly disabled child is unforgivable. I expect that you now are horrified that you did it and cannot understand how you could come to do it or what you were thinking. But you did it.

“It was a deliberate disregard for his welfare. It is beyond belief. It really was unbelievable conduct.” The court was told Weaver, of Middleton, Shropshire, used to be in the RAF but was discharged on 11 September 2001 – the day of the Twin Towers terrorist attack in New York.

Having had to bury a friend from the armed forces 18 months later, he suffered from "long-standing anxiety, depression and PTSD.”

The boy’s mother also appeared at Shrewsbury Crown Court last week, and pleaded to guilty to assault, ill treatment, neglect and abandon a child/young person to cause unnecessary suffering/injury. The court heard how she did not take the boy, who has epilepsy and cerebral palsy, to hospital until 17 hours later.

She was sentenced to a community order for 18 months which included completing six months of alcohol abuse treatment and completing 20 days of rehabilitation.

Det Con Karena Evans, of West Mercia Police, said after the case: “This was a horrifying incident and hard to comprehend that someone would do something so awful to a disabled child. Thankfully, the little boy has survived his ordeal and he has now been safeguarded.”