A childless British couple were sentenced to five years in jail today for poisoning and killing a three-year-old boy that they had planned to adopt, but who fell short of their expectations.

Ian and Angela Gay, both 37, of Halesowen, West Midlands, force fed Christian Blewitt with two or three teaspoons of salt, the equivalent of 100 salt and vinegar crisps packets, as a punishment while he was on a trial placement with them.

He was found comatose in his bedroom before being taken to hospital on December 8, 2002. He was then transferred to Birmingham Children's Hospital where his condition deteriorated and he died four days later.

The prosecution said that the Gays poisoned the youngster when he failed to live up to their expectations of comfortable family living.

Mr Gay, 37, who worked as an electrical engineer before becoming a house husband, and Mrs Gay, 38, an actuary, were cleared of murder and found guilty of manslaughter. The judge rejected prosecution claims that they struck the child.

Christian had been placed with the couple, together with his younger brother and sister, in November 2002 after their biological mother was deemed unfit to care for them.

The judge said that despite the boy's difficult start in life, his foster parents had given him "excellent care" but, not long after, Mr Gay was telephoning social services calling Christian a "vegetable" and a "zombie".

It was "quite extraordinary" to describe a three-year-old child in this way, he said, as was Mrs Gay's decision to return to work not long after Christian and his siblings arrived on their placements. "Your decision to go to work as Christian lay desperately ill in hospital showed where your priorities lay," the judge told Mrs Gay.

"Every parent in the courtroom must have been thinking to themselves, 'How could she go back to work with her child in that position?'. "Both of you showed that your approach to that little boy was entirely selfish. You were interested in what was best for you and not what was best for him.

"As the last week passed, you became more upset and angry about his behaviour, which was in reality hardly out of the ordinary even for a child who had not had his difficult start.

"The only inference is you decided to punish him by making him ingest salt."

Medical experts ruled out dehydration and a pre-existing metabolic disorder as possible causes of such a high level of sodium in Christian's body.

All the doctors asked to give evidence, except one, concluded that the high levels must have been caused by the ingestion of a large quantity of salt on the day. There were no known cases of a child voluntarily eating such large amount. The only cases were of adults with serious mental illness.

Sentencing the couple, Mr Justice Pitchers said that the pair were able to demonstrate on an intellectual level that they understood what was required to be parents from reading books and were "intelligent enough" to give the impression to social services that they would be proper carers.

The judge said there could be no criticism of social services for placing the children with the Gays.

The sentence of five years was on the basis of a "single episode", the judge said, adding: "It was a single episode committed not by the sort of inadequate and unintelligent people often sitting in your position and charged with this sort of offence, but intelligent people who must have made a deliberate choice more or less in cold blood to submit him to this punishment."

Angela Saganowska, Sandwell Council’s executive director of social inclusion and health, said that Christian’s younger brother and sister had now been successfully adopted together.

Ms Saganowska said: “Christian was going through the normal adoption process which by its very nature is extremely rigorous. Obviously though, I am keen to see whether or not there are any lessons to be learned from the case for the future."

She added that a serious case review was being carried out by the Sandwell Area Child Protection Committee which includes representatives from Sandwell Council, West Midlands Police, local health services and the NSPCC.

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