Mum who drowned twins said they were her ‘reason to live’

INQUEST HEARS OF MOTHER’S STATE OF MIND BEFORE TRAGEDY

A MUM who killed her twin babies on Boxing Day had told her therapist her children were the main reason she had not taken her own life, an inquest has heard.

Samantha Ford, 39, drowned 23-month-olds Chloe and Jake in December 2018 after struggling to come to terms with the breakdown of her marriage to Hull-born Steven Ford.

On Boxing Day 2018, Ford held her children under water in the bath of their Margate home, then dressed them in nappies and baby-grows, and wrote a note saying “please forgive my crazy mind”.

She then drove to Beachy Head where she stayed for some time before attempting suicide by driving into the back of a lorry on the A299 Thanet Way.

She admitted manslaughter by reason of diminished responsibility and was jailed for ten years, but is currently serving her sentence in a secure psychiatric facility.

The inquest heard how Ford had a consultation with a GP on December 21, in which she requested an extension of her anti-depressant medication as she was having trouble sleeping, reports Kent Live.

Ford was suffering an acute stress reaction to the failure of her marriage, and had seen a mental health team who sent a letter to the surgery on December 14, warning that she had suicidal thoughts but this had not been put in the GP’S notes.

The GP told the court had he seen the letter “the consultation would have taken a completely different pathway, instead of the consultation being a prescription request, I would have been going down a mental health assessment risk-assessment pathway”.

During the inquest, which is still ongoing, a leader at talking therapy service Insight Healthcare described how the twins were the mum’s “strong protective factors” - giving her a reason to live.

However, just four days after she made those comments, they were dead.

Details of her fragile mental state continued to emerge during the third day of an inquest into the deaths of the children.

Providing evidence, the leader said: “People rate protective factors and describe anything from children to their pet, car and religion - there are many things people can rate as their protective factors.

“It’s a question we’re asking that if they were having suicidal thoughts, what might it be that would prevent them from acting on those thoughts, so what is it that might stop them.

“In this case she identified that her twins would prevent her from acting on any thoughts of taking her own life.

“They were presented as a strong protective factor.

“They were sometimes acting as protective factors in the sense that the suicidal thoughts were coming and going.

“When we look at the duration, the thoughts were lasting a couple of minutes to hours a day.

“As they were intensifying in nature, those protective factors may have weakened slightly. But as they reduced in their intensity, then the twins were acting as stronger protective factors.”

Ford’s lawyer questioned whether the parental bond between the children and their mother put the youngsters at an increased level of harm, but Ms Sumner said “there were no specific concerns”.

“That isn’t something we have seen within our service,” she said.

“There was nothing specific which gave us indication these children were at risk.”

She alluded to an NSPCC report from 2016 which “really raises stark concerns” about allowing infants to become protective features in parents’ lives.

In reading out a paragraph from the report, she said: “Children should never be considered a protective factor for parents who are feeling suicidal.

“In some cases, professionals inappropriately use the child as a protective element to reduce the parent’s risk of self-harm. This belief significantly increases the risk to the child.”

The mental health leader said that was the first time she had heard of the NSPCC findings. But she did state there may have been training based on the report during 2019.

The inquest continues.