A NURSE'S 30-year career came "crashing down" when she fatally injected a Blackburn toddler, a court has heard.

In a police statement heard by Liverpool Crown Court, Rose Aru said she realised immediately what she had done after mistakenly giving Jake McGeough with a muscle relaxing drug instead of a sedative.

Jake, aged 18 months, of Leicester Road, Whitebirk, suffered a cardiac arrest and died two days after being given the injection during a routine lung scan at Alder Hey Children's Hospital, Liverpool, in July 2001.

Aru said when she heard the news of Jake's death it was "the end of my life."

She said: "I never, never intended to do any harm to Jake or anyone. All the years I have worked I was not trained to harm anyone.

"The glorious career I had nursing and all the work I had done came crashing down."

Aru, 59, from Wavertree, Liverpool, denies manslaughter.

On the fourth day of her trial the court heard how she had been asked to accompany Jake for a scan and had witnessed three syringes of drugs -- the muscle relaxing drug vecuronium, a sedative called midazolam and a sodium chloride flush -- being drawn up by another nurse.

She said she had asked paediatric registrar Doctor Malcolm Semple if he would be accompanying her to the scan and when told he wasn't asked if it was okay for her to go alone.

She said just prior to arriving at the scan room Jake had become agitated and she had given him a bottle of milk to calm him.

She said they had gone into the scan room and put Jake on the bed but then he had become agitated.

Aru said: "He was not keeping still for the pictures to be relayed so I picked up a 10ml syringe of midazolam and showed it to Lynn.

"I said I am going to give him 1ml of Midazolam to try and keep him quiet."

Aru said she then put the syringe back in the kidney bowl while she tried to restrain Jake.

She said: "I was struggling to hold Jake and I reached out."

The court had earlier heard that Aru had been told to contact a doctor if any drugs needed to be administered.

Superintendent radiographer Elizabeth Macdonald said she passed on a message from Doctor Semple for Aru to contact him if Jake needed sedation.

Mrs Macdonald said that prior to the scan Jake had been "agitated" and "distressed" but that that had not been anything unusual.

She said Jake's condition had not deteriorated during his time in the scan room and she personally would not have sedated Jake.

She added that she did not know if Rose Aru was allowed to give certain medications.

(Proceeding)