I hope this pain lasts until your dying breath
What custody battle mother wrote to ex before strangling their seven-year-old son with a scarf
‘I can’t put him through this’
A MOTHER fighting for custody of her seven-year-old son killed him days after his teachers raised concerns with social services.
Lesley Speed, 44, strangled Archie Spriggs with a scarf then smothered him with a cushion on the day she and the boy’s father were due at a family court.
She also left a series of letters, including one to the father Matthew Spriggs saying: ‘I hope this pain lives with you until your dying breath.’ The schoolboy was found dead on his bed by Speed’s new partner Darren Jones at their home in Rushbury, Shropshire, on September 21 last year.
Mr Jones also found Speed on the bathroom floor with self-inflicted knife wounds to her neck, arms and wrists.
She told him at the time: ‘I killed him. I smothered him. I can’t put him through this.’ The charity shop worker believed Archie’s father wanted to take him to live in Slovakia with his new wife.
Archie had previously been subject to an Early Help Assessment – a means of identifying vulnerable children – because of the acrimonious relationship between his parents, Birmingham Crown Court heard. Child experts from Shropshire Council assessed him but ‘did not have any particular concerns’, jurors were told.
Social services were alerted again after Speed turned up to Archie’s primary school in floods of tears on September 14 and told staff about the pending custody battle.
Teachers at Rushbury Church of England School then called the council over her state of mind. She killed her son seven days later.
Speed had first been diagnosed with depression in 1998. She left a series of disturbing letters addressed to family members in the week before she killed Archie.
In one to Mr Spriggs, she wrote: ‘I hope this pain lives with you until your dying breath.’ And in a letter to Archie, she said: ‘I am doing the unthinkable because I feel I have no choice. I know now you will be safe from harm and filled with only love and joy in heaven.’
Sally Howes QC, prosecuting said: ‘ My suggestion is that these [letters] were certainly written to get this message across - “I have had to do away with Archie in order to protect him, because the court is so flawed and won’t protect him”.’
Speed denied killing Archie and said he had hanged himself to avoid living with his father. Her legal team argued that if she did kill her son, it was because she suffered from ‘ a substantial depressive illness’.
But a jury found her guilty of murder yesterday following a two-week trial. Speed burst into tears when the verdict was read out and shouted: ‘No, no, you’ve got it wrong.
‘My kids are my life, they are my world. Nothing would make me take their life, my kids are my world. You’re wrong, you’re wrong.’ Afterwards, Archie’s father said: ‘The loss of Archie is, and continues to be, completely devastating to the whole family … you should never have to bury your own child.’
Sentencing had to be adjourned until today after Speed became too distressed to return to the court.