Mother Jailed For Killing Son With Bleach

[shaheediyan]

http://www.independent.co.uk/news/uk/crime/mother-jailed-for-killing-son-with-bleach-2259270.html

Mother jailed for killing son with bleach

By John-Paul Ford Rojas, PA

Friday, 1 April 2011

A mother was today jailed for killing her autistic 12-year-old with bleach - after social services allegedly failed to address her mental health problems.

Satpal Kaur Singh, 45, struggled to cope looking after son Ajit and feared he would be taken away, the Old Bailey heard.

Her "obvious" mental health problems were recognised yet she was "allowed to resist help", the court was told.

David Hislop QC, defending, said: "Neighbours knew, school teachers knew, social services knew, but the tragedy for Ajit was that nothing was done."

Singh made her son drink a cup of Domestos in February last year, just hours after she refused to co-operate with council staff at a meeting over his care.

She also drank some herself and in a suicide note said she had done it after being "scrutinised and hounded by social services".

Singh, of Lambourne Road, Barking, east London, was jailed for seven years today after she pleaded guilty to manslaughter on the grounds of diminished responsibility at an earlier hearing.

Judge Peter Beaumont, the Recorder of London, told her: "I recognise how difficult Ajit was to care for.

"Your deteriorating mental health robbed you of proper insight into what was going wrong and erected real obstacles between you and people and the agencies that were trying so hard to help you."

Barking and Dagenham council said a serious case review was expected to be completed in the next few weeks.