Five years for mother who tried to gas both her sons
A MOTHER who tried to gas her two children to death with barbecues after she became ‘ overwhelmed’ by financial and family difficulties was jailed yesterday.
Lisa Walmsley, 51, tried to poison sons Lewis, now 20, and Callum, 21, during the night while she was in the middle of a severe nervous breakdown, a court heard.
The alarm was raised when university undergraduate Lewis realised smoke was engulfing his brother’s room in the £350,000 family home and ran to get his mother. But she then drove Callum away in the family BMW and tried again to poison him. Police stopped the car before they were overwhelmed and Walmsley was arrested.
Walmsley was described by friends as a ‘ kind and dedicated mother’ and appeared to be leading an idyllic lifestyle, including yachting trips and visits to a shooting club. She also featured in the pages of a local glossy magazine sipping champagne at a ‘Cheshire Set’ charity ladies’ lunch attended by a string of TV soap actors and reality stars.
However, inquiries revealed Walmsley had been struggling to cope with stressful family circumstances. She had been researching ways to kill her sons and then take her own life to ‘protect’ the family from further ‘suffering’.
Both men have forgiven their mother following the attempts on their lives during the early hours of New Year’s Day in 2019.
Yesterday Walmsley admitted two counts of attempted murder and was jailed for five years and four months.
She had been suffering a ‘series of challenges in her life’ including the ill health of her late mother, father and sister, Manchester Crown Court was told.
In 2005, Walmsley sought treatment for depression and was given antidepressants. But five years later, she and her husband Andrew divorced, leaving her to bring up the two boys. She had declined offers of counselling.
‘It is fair to say Miss Walmsley’s life has had a number of challenges that were not of her making, and it appears these extra challenges combined with depression triggered her ideas of suicide and feelings she could not cope,’ said Rob Hall, prosecuting. Towards the end of December 2018, she began plotting how to kill herself and her sons. In the early hours of January 1, Lewis found that his brother’s first-floor bedroom at the family home in Cheadle Hulme, Greater Manchester, was filling with smoke, the court heard.
Mr Hall said Lewis ‘opened the window and shouted for his mother’, but she blamed the smoke on burning toast.
However, Lewis ‘linked it to a threat she made years before to gas herself and both children’, the prosecutor said, and phoned his father who advised him to call the police. Mr Hall added: ‘ The defendant opened the other house windows and told a confused Callum to get into her BMW, saying they going for a drive to find Lewis.’
Walmsley again tried to gas Callum, but he became suspicious and repeatedly asked: ‘ What’s going on?’ Mr Hall said: ‘Initially she didn’t answer but then said: “Why don’t we kill ourselves tonight?”’
Meanwhile, police had arrived at the family home and traced Walmsley’s mobile phone signal. The officers carried out a controlled stop of her car at 4am.
In mitigation, defence counsel Richard Simons said she felt ‘hopeless’ as a result of her severe depressive illness, and as a consequence felt it was ‘necessary to kill them to protect them from suffering’.
Judge Patrick Field QC told Walmsley: ‘You are regarded as an excellent, loving mother and the overwhelming impression I have gained from many testimonials is one of disbelief you could attempt to kill those who are so dear to you.
‘You felt hopeless and powerless and overwhelmed. The picture itself was one of overwhelming despair.’
‘Why don’t we kill ourselves tonight?’