‘HOW I KILLED MY CHILDREN’
SA mum tells how she smothered her three handicapped kids, then tried to slit her wrists
ANIA Clarence laid out her three children in their beds, lovingly placing their toys around their heads. Then she smothered them all with a nappy until they took their last breaths. The Old Bailey in London heard yesterday how the 43-year-old South African mother suffocated twins boys Ben and Max aged three with a nappy. She used the nappy so the toddlers could not smell her while she took their lives. She then smothered Olivia, 4, at the family home in south London.
And afterwards, Tania took some headache tablets, drank wine and slit her wrists in a failed suicide attempt.
The three dead children suffered from spinal muscular dystrophy type 2, or so-called floppy baby syndrome, which causes a range of physical disabilities and shortens life expectancy.
Their fourth child, Taya, does not have the ailment.
After she murdered the children she wrote her husband a long list of instructions and information almost as if she thought that life would just carry on as normal.
The list was entitled “Things to do and remember”. It included a birthday party Taya was attending, building certificates and plans for Taya’s birthday.
The Old Bailey accepted Tania’s plea of manslaughter with diminished responsibility for the killings in April this year. She had denied murder charges.
At the sentencing hearing yesterday, prosecutor Zoe Johnson said husband Gary Clarence’s consent to abdominal surgery on his sick daughter Olivia was a “substantial trigger” towards the killings. He agreed to the gastrostomy for Olivia, 4, despite he and his wife’s reluctance for invasive surgery.
The operation allows medics to feed a patient directly into their stomach.
The court was told Tania recognised the operation was essential and would improve Olivia’s quality of life.
Previous hearings heard Tania was suffering from severe depression and found caring for the three children “exhausting, distressing, debilitating and overwhelming”.
Yesterday she made only her third appearance in court when she stood in the dock of court 9 at the Old Bailey.
Dressed in black and with black shoulder length hair, she stared at the ground as the sentence hearing began.
After just 10 minutes, she was allowed to leave court and was led sobbing from the dock
Tby her solicitor and returned to hospital where she had been ordered to stay at previous bail hearings.
Gary sat impassive at the rear of the court as his wife was led away.
Yesterday the court was told how the bodies of Ben, Max and Olivia were found at their R21 million townhouse in south London by the family nanny and a friend after receiving calls from both Tania’s mother and Gary, who was on holiday in South Africa with Taya.
Johnson told the court that both parents struggled with the level of support and interference from medical staff helping them with Ben, Max and Olivia.
At one stage there were up to 60 health professionals involved in their care. She said the Clarences believed in “quality of life over longevity” and on more than one occasion Tania raised the prospect of returning to South Africa with the three children so they could “all die together”.
By last year, relations between the Clarences and doctors had become so strained that medics were considering childprotection measures on the basis of neglect but no intervention occurred because the children were happy and well looked after.
However, Gary’s consent to the abdominal surgery upset his wife – something she told a friend a week before the deaths.
Johnson said: “The defendant did not want this operation to happen. It is clear that Mr Clarence’s decision to consent to the gastrostomy for Olivia was a substantial trigger for the killings.
“Mr Clarence recognised that the operation was essential and that it would improve Olivia’s quality of life.
“The defendant could only see the operation as the beginning of a slippery slope of never-ending and increasingly painful operations for the children.” A week later they were dead. At the hearing, Johnson said their teachers described Ben and Max as “chatty, full of smiles, with a real sense of fun” and eager for new experiences.
“Olivia was unwaveringly cheerful and positive. She never felt sorry for herself and was very matter-of-fact about her disability. She loved dinosaurs and dressing up as a princess.”
Despite Tania’s depression and struggles bringing up the children while her husband worked away from home, her friends did not suspect any suicidal tendencies.
The hearing will continue next week and sentencing is expected on Tuesday.