Son cleared over mother’s death after row over potatoes
A MAN cleared of causing the death of his own mother after a row over Christmas dinner claimed she was “like a Jekyll and Hyde character, but I loved her”.
Mark Jennens was cleared this week of the manslaughter of his frail 78-year-old mother, Hazel, following a trial at Wolverhampton Crown Court.
Mr Jennens, aged 40, of Sorrel Walk, Brierley Hill, who had been a full time carer for his mother, had been accused of picking up his mother by the arms at their home and frogmarching her to the door on Christmas Eve 2015. This had a blazing row about the Christmas potatoes after she criticised him for his efforts.
But she fell to the ground breaking her hip in the process and later died from bronchopneomonia at Russells Halls Hospital on January 20, 2016.
Mr Jennens was arrested by police and charged with her manslaughter.
The prosecution case against him was that the attack was substantial to cause his mother’s death.
But following less than an hour and half of deliberation a jury found Mr Jennens not guilty.
The court heard that for more than ten years Mr Jennens had cared for his mother, who suffered from lung cancer and emphysema.
But he had suffered a breakdown in early 2015 and sought help from social services to care for her. He said she was a “difficult” woman who could “evil” towards him. However, be she had refused external support. On the day of the incident Mr Jennens admitted assaulting his mother following another verbal onslaught from her about Christmas dinner and called the police and ambulance himself telling the operator he had “just lost it”. His defence barrister Shaon Bailey argued there had been a “break in the chain of causation” when his mother was incorrectly administered salbu- tamol in she died.
Speaking after the case Mr Jennens said: “It was never the thought of prison that bothered me it was the stigma of being the man that killed his own mother. My mother was like Jekyll and Hyde but I loved her. She could be very aggressive towards me. I think she suffered from a borderline personality disorder which was never properly diagnosed. She had a brain scan but it had come back normal. She was very difficult to live with and to care for but I loved her.” hospital two days before