Court sympathises with mom who killed her babies

According to medical experts, it is difficult to anticipate what a woman may do in this state and there have been countless examples of some women behaving totally out of character in the period shortly after having a baby. Today’s story may be one of those.

Felicia Boots, a 34-year-old mother with post-natal depression, killed her two babies because she had delusions that they would be seized by social services. At least, that’s what the court was told. She broke down and wept as she admitted in the Old Bailey to smothering her ten-week-old son and 14-month-old daughter.

The court heard that she stopped taking her medication for her condition because she feared the side effects would harm her children whom she was breastfeeding. She broke down in tears after she was asked to stand in the dock to enter her plea to two charges of murder.

In a trembling voice, she replied to the first charge, “Not guilty to murder but guilty to manslaughter because of diminished responsibility.” She looked down and read from a piece of paper as she was asked to enter a plea to the second charge. Giving the same answer, she wiped away tears with a handkerchief before sitting down.

On the day of this horrible tragedy, Felicia’s husband, Jeff Boots, returned home from work to find the house in darkness and his wife curled up on the stairs. He ran upstairs and discovered the bodies of their children lying side by side on the floor of a walk-in wardrobe. He called the emergency services but paramedics were unable to save the children. His wife, who was weak and unsteady on her feet, was arrested. He told the officers at the scene that his wife was a good mother and he could not believe she would do such a thing.

Computer records showed that Mrs Boots made a series of Google searches in the previous weeks about her concerns over the side effects of her medication. In a note found next to the bodies, she questioned how she could have done such a thing. She wrote that she was scared and sorry and that her life started to fall apart a few weeks earlier.

Prosecutor Edward Brown, QC, said, “This plainly is a tragic case. There were signs Mrs Boots had made an attempt on her own life. She had marks on her neck.”

He told the court that the Crown had closely examined medical reports and had spoken to Mr Boots, who was supporting his wife. He added, “The authors of the reports are clear and agreed in their conclusions as to Felicia Boots’ condition and the reasons for her actions. As a result, the Crown has taken the firm view that it is not in the public interest to pursue the counts of murder but to accept the pleas as entered.”

A statement from Mrs Boots was read to the court by her lawyer. In it, she said, “The ninth of May 2012 is a day I will be eternally sorry for. It should never have happened and it troubles me more deeply than anyone will ever know. A part of me will always be missing. But I am a good mum and I never meant this to happen.”

The Old Bailey judge, Mr Justice Fulford, said, “This is an almost indescribably sad case. Although the roots of Mrs Boots’s actions were profoundly tragic given the loss of two such young lives, what occurred was not what most people would regard as criminal activity.

“I unreservedly accept that what the defendant did to the two children she and her husband loved and nurtured, was solely the result of psychological and bio-physiological forces that were beyond her control.

“This has always been a happy family. This is someone who delighted in being a mother and she was good at it. This case is the polar opposite of the appalling incidents of child neglect and cruelty that sometimes come before the courts.”

Expressing his view that a prison sentence would be wholly inappropriate in the case, he ordered that Mrs Boots be detained at a mental health unit until doctors deem her fit for release.