‘made up’ says psychiatrist

any evidence to suggest that the index offence was driven by anger, feelings of anger, feelings of revenge or a wish for revenge and I’ve not seen in her history tendency for angry outbursts.

“There’s no previous history of aggression or violence, she was a good, caring, loving attentive mother by every account.

“There wasn’t evidence that she was an angry depressive, vindictive person.

“In Mrs Ford’s case, what I’m really referring to is feelings of some emotional insecurity, insecure attachments to other people and perhaps she compensates for that in some way by being what we’ve heard is slightly controlling, although I might describe it as being rather organised and benefitting from having a structured approach to her life and needing people around her because those people give her a sense of security.

“She seems, in layman’s terms, to have slightly gone off the rails in her teenage years.

“She had some unstable relationships, she took an overdose, it’s not uncommon. All the evidence is she was very well adjusted as an adult.”

Prosecutor Tom Kark QC, cross-examining Prof Mezey, said: “Whilst she was talking with her parents and reassuring them that she was safe with the children she clearly had in her mind drowning the children, didn’t she?”

He continued: “The thought had come into her head in fact, it would seem, some three hours earlier. At three o’clock she was googling how long does it take to drown children.

“Once they left the house, which was some time after six o’clock, there was a 28-minute period where she must have killed the children.”

He added: “Thereafter she lies to people about what has happened. When asked by her parents, ‘Jake and Chloe are asleep’ - does that not indicate an element of control?”

Professor Mezey - who earlier described the killings as “entirely out of character” - replied: “There’s absolutely no evidence that anger played any role in the killing.

“In absence of the disorder, this killing would not have happened.”

She added: “I think it’s indicative of a degree of irrationality. She was determined to kill herself.”

Brenda Campbell QC, in mitigation, described Ford as an excellent mother.

She said: “She suffered a catastrophic level of depression leading her to believe that she and the children needed to die.

“The children were loved and cared for by her and she very much put their interests of their wellbeing above anything else, above herself and probably above her marital relationship.”

She read a statement from her client that said: “I’m in torment.

“Their loss to me is indescribable and physically and mentally hurts.

“The fact they are not alive because of me is the hardest part of all.”

Ms Campbell added: “Samantha Ford sits before you as a young woman of good character who no-one foresaw would ever be in this situation.”

The QC said her client’s family laughed at her “controlling” tendencies and added: “The reality is that the very characteristics that made her family love her and accept her for who she is; that made her an excellent mother to those two children, are also aspects of her personality that made her particularly susceptible to the catastrophic decline of her mental health.

“The anger towards him [Steven Ford] as a result of the breakdown of the marriage is entirely independent of what she did on the 26th into the 27th of December.”