Mum takes Sophia’s Cause on to TV’s This Morning
Little Sophia
BEREAVED mum Amanda O’Halloran has taken her campaign to ban looped blind cords from home
across the UK onto national television.
The 22-year-old, from Tirley, appeared on ITV’s This Morning show, to talk about the death of her 17-month-old daughter Sophia, who strangled herself on a blind cord earlier this year.
She said: “We had the stair gates, the fire guard, the plug sockets and we made sure all the doors were closed.
“We also had the clips that go on the cupboard to make sure she couldn’t get in the cupboards because she had an obsession with opening and closing doors.
“She was just constantly on the go all of the time.”
Amanda and her partner Chris Parslow never thought little Sophia would play with the cords on any of the blinds, especially since they were hidden from view.
She left the tot watching Peppa Pig while she went upstairs to grab some clothes for her to wear that day, on June 27, and was gone for no more than four minutes.
She told the presenters about the awful moment when she came back downstairs and realised something was wrong. “I had a quick look around the living room and I couldn’t see her,” she added.
“My house is quite small. It’s a little cottage with really low ceilings, and I had the door closed.
“And my first reaction because I couldn’t see her was ‘Oh someone has taken her.’ That’s the first thing that came into my mind.
“And I thought, ‘No, I locked the door and she was only watching Peppa Pig.’ And that’s when I saw her hanging on the blind cord.”
From March next year new regulations will be introduced, ensuring retailers will be breaking the law if they sell products that do not meet blind safety standards.
You can find out more about Sophia’s Cause via the Facebook site. To sign the petition go to epetitions.direct.gov.uk/petitions/55067