Stepmum jailed for 1978 killing of girl, 5

Stepmum jailed for 1978 killing of girl, 5Just nowShareSaveAdd as preferred on GoogleLuxmy Gopal,Isleworth Crown CourtandAmy Clarke,London

Metropolitan police

A woman who killed her five-year-old stepdaughter by scalding her in a bath in 1978 has been jailed for 12 years.

Janice Nix, 67, punished Andrea Bernard by forcing her into the piping hot water in Thornton Heath, south London, nearly 50 years ago.

Andrea suffered severe burns to half her body and died in hospital on 13 July 1978, five weeks later. The jury heard her death had been treated as an accident until Andrea's older brother, Desmond Bernard, went to police in 2022.

Nix was found guilty of Andrea's manslaughter. Sentencing her at Isleworth Crown Court, Judge Justice Lavender said: "I'm sure that you ran the bath, you knew how hot it was... You heard her screams."

"At the very least the risk ought to have been obvious to you," the judge added.

Nix, of Clapham, was also convicted of cruelty to Desmond Bernard between October 1975 and June 1978, when he was aged seven to nine.

Bernard, now 56, read out a victim impact statement in court and addressed Nix directly, saying: "Your actions robbed me of my sister, and my sister of her life."

Nix was shaking her head and appeared to be mouthing words while he spoke to her.

She will serve two-thirds of the 12-year prison sentence before she can be released on licence, the judge said.

• Warning: distressing details are included in this article

Jurors heard that on 6 June 1978, Nix was "furious" after Andrea ignored orders not to leave the house and to help with cleaning.

Bernard said he later heard the bath running after Andrea had suffered a beating from Nix.

He added: "I could hear Janice shouting 'get in the bath' and I could hear Andrea saying 'the bath is too hot mummy'."

He then heard screaming before Nix began calling for Andrea to "wake up".

Bernard then entered the bathroom and saw Nix cradling Andrea, who was "limp" and wrapped in a towel.

Family handout

Andrea died nearly six weeks after arriving at hospital with burns to 50% of her body.

A burns expert told the trial a child exposed to water hot enough to cause those injuries would instinctively try to stand up to escape, rather than remain seated.

Prosecutors said suggested that Nix must have forcibly held some of Andrea underwater.

He said Nix asked him to say it was an accident and "to say that we were in the garden when it happened and that she would never beat me again".

"The last memories I have of my sister's life are piercing screams and lying about her death to survive," Bernard said in court.

"Your contrived grief at Andrea's funeral, the lies, the tears. You fooled my family because they couldn't imagine the unimaginable.

"You took their kindness for weakness and you manipulated them so that you couldn't be found out.

"The time has come for you to acknowledge what you have done to Andrea and myself," he said.

A statement from Andrea's mother, Angela Bernard, was also read to the court and she described her as the "light of my life" and a sweet, loving, happy child.

At the time of Andrea's death, Nix was a teenager known as Janice Thomas was in a relationship with the children's father and was effectively their stepmother, the court heard.

She later published Breaking Out, written with Elizabeth Sheppard, describing how she went from being a drug dealer known as "Mama J" to becoming an award winning probation officer.

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