I miss being your daddy
Father’s grief for drowned girl, three, as mother gets 18 years for her murder
THE heartbroken father whose estranged wife was jailed for life after murdering their young daughter said yesterday: ‘I desperately miss being a daddy.’
Jurors had previously heard how Claire Colebourn woke ‘beautiful’ Bethan, three, at 2am before drowning her in the bath.
As the 36-year- old former teacher was ordered to serve a minimum of 18 years behind bars, Bethan’s father Michael yesterday told the court: ‘The one thing in my life that gave me purpose has gone.’
In a statement issued through police, Mr Colebourn, 38, chief executive of a luxury marine interior company, added: ‘I desperately miss being a daddy – we would have such great times together.
‘Bethan’s laugh was infectious and her energy was endless. There is not a second in the day that goes by that I am not thinking about her.
‘Bethan was my world and being her daddy made me so proud. I miss her so much.’
Mr Colebourn added that Bethan was killed in a ‘cold and callous manner at the very hands of the one other person that should have protected her and kept her safe’.
Winchester Crown Court heard Colebourn had hit ‘rock bottom’ after her high-flying husband ended their 16-year relationship.
She woke their daughter at their
‘The one thing she deserved was a life’
home in Fordingbridge, Hampshire, in the early hours of October 19, 2017, led her to the bath and held her body under the water. The court heard that Bethan’s last words were: ‘I don’t want a bath, Mummy.’
The former biology teacher was discovered by her mother about 14 hours later, having tried to kill herself as well. Colebourn, who erroneously believed that her husband had been having an affair, showed no emotion as Mrs Justice Johannah Cutts handed down the sentence.
The judge told her: ‘ You were an emotional rollercoaster; one moment you were trying to get back together with Michael, one moment you were trying to divorce him.
‘Mostly you felt keenly betrayed; you became convinced your husband was having an affair and tracking you in your house. There was no evidence this was the case.
‘Bethan was your child and you were her mother, you had responsibility for her care and wellbeing. The fact you even considered killing her should have shocked you.’
The judge said she wanted to make it clear Mr Colebourn was ‘in no way responsible’ for Bethan’s death after he rejected seeing Colebourn a day before.
She also said: ‘It’s quite something to decide to take your own life but it’s something else to make that decision for someone else. The one thing Bethan was entitled to and deserved was a life.’
Karim Khalil QC, defending, told the court that a doctor assessing Colebourn at a mental health facility in Oxford said she ‘appeared to have a personality disorder’ and was ‘emotionally unstable’. Victim impact statements were not read in court but were read privately by the judge before the sentencing hearing.