Mercy for child killer mom
ASOUTH African mother loved her three disabled children dearly and exhausted herself financially and emotionally to ensure their well-being before eventually killing them, a senior judge said in a British court yesterday.
Justice Sweeney sentenced 43year-old Tania Clarence to a hospital order on this basis, finding that her responsibility and culpability were low in light of her prolonged battle with major depressive episodes, the British Press Association reported.
Sweeney told Clarence, who was dressed all in black and comforted by her solicitor, that she would not be released until she had recuperated.
Clarence pleaded guilty to manslaughter by diminished responsibility of Olivia, 4, and 3-year-old twins Ben and Max at the family home in south-west London, over the Easter holidays.
The children, who suffered from the muscle-weakening condition SMA type-2, were found dead in their beds with toys arranged around their heads.
The Old Bailey in London found that Clarence’s family had a history of psychiatric illness. Her grandmother committed suicide and her mother tried to end her life when her marriage ended.
Clarence had a lonely and unhappy childhood, forming a personality characterised by low selfesteem, difficulty in forming close relationships and emotional scarring.
While in a long-term abusive relationship with a boyfriend at a South African university, she had a depressive episode.
She married her husband, Gary, in 1994 and had a second episode of depression in 1998.
Clarence struggled to look after her four children, three of whom needed wheelchairs.
Sweeney noted the amount of strain Clarence had been under in trying to meet the children’s needs.
She and Gary, an investment banker with Investec, spent all the money they had, as well as all the money they could borrow, to buy and adapt a house so the children could move around in wheelchairs. “You did not want either the house, or the children to be institutionalised and later (once the children were of school age) you enjoyed a good relationship with their schools,” the judgment stated.
The court was told Clarence repeatedly clashed with doctors during a long history of the children’s medical treatment in and out of hospital.
Clarence’s attitude was that their quality of life was more important than its length, and she preferred to opt for palliative care over more invasive treatment.
On one occasion, she said: “Gary and I do love our children, just not in the way you want us to.”
At the end of 2012, she told medics that she did not want to see her children’s suffering prolonged, and “if they were in South Africa, they would go to the top of a mountain and die”.
Resisting
Just before the killings, Clarence had been resisting agreeing to a gastrostomy for Olivia that doctors had urged because of fears that she was underweight.
The dispute also coincided with the appointment of an inexperienced social worker who replaced a woman who had resigned in disgust after being moved off the case because she had got too close to the family, the court heard.
The new social worker presented Clarence with a list of subjects for discussion, including gastrostomy, physiotherapy routines, spinal surgery and her mental health – all of which she found “overwhelming”.
Gary Clarence had urged “tact” as he finally agreed to a gastric button for Olivia but, at the same time, social services called a meeting to discuss the possibility of instituting child protection measures.
The social worker ignored his plea and suggested to Clarence a gastric button for the twins next. Days later, all three children were dead.
A Kingston Council spokesman said: “The Local Safeguarding Children Board is undertaking a serious case review. The partnership will ensure that any learning from this review is incorporated into the work with children with disabilities and their families.”
Gary Clarence declined to speak to the media, but family solicitor Richard Egan read a statement outside the Old Bailey: “This case was one of the saddest to come before the criminal courts. The Clarence family and, in particular, Tania, dedicated their lives to the care and welfare of their three severely disabled children.
“Her love, commitment and tenacity in the face of the overwhelming responsibilities such care entailed was extraordinary.
“Her daily struggle eventually overwhelmed Tania’s ability to cope with the enormity of the task she faced. Ultimately, her story of dedication and love became a story of despair and utter hopelessness.
“Tania now faces further struggles and a future of coping with the past and understanding what happened… It is a future she will face with the support of her husband.”