Angels told mother to drown and burn girl, court hears
A WOMAN drowned her four-yearold daughter before setting her body on fire after believing she had to sacrifice her to God, a court has heard.
Carly Ann Harris, 38, killed Amelia Brooke Harris at their home after suffering a mental breakdown which made her believe she was saving the world.
Newport Crown Court was told that Amelia’s teenage brother found her body, wrapped in a sheet, on a table in their garden in Trealaw, Rhondda, South Wales, on June 8 this year.
Prosecutor Michael Jones QC said: “On that day Harris killed her fouryear-old daughter Amelia by placing her in a bath of water and deliberately drowning her at their home address.
“The defendant then took Amelia’s dead body out of the bath, covered her with a sheet, carried her downstairs and placed her body on a coffee table that was situated in the back garden, and then set fire to Amelia’s body.”
Mr Jones said that, on the day of the death, neighbour Megan Griffiths heard a raised voice saying “Mummy, Mummy, Mummy”. She mentioned it to her partner, Jake Barlow, but he said he had not heard anything.
A short time later Mr Barlow heard screaming outside and went into the street with Miss Griffiths.
Miss Griffiths saw Harris standing in the front garden, looking “dazed”, and the defendant told her: “God will be with her. The angels have taken her.”
The neighbour dialled 999 and went into the back garden of Harris’s house where she saw Amelia’s charred remains lying on the coffee table covered with a sheet.
When the police arrived at the scene, Harris told them: “The angels told me to do it. Just arrest me. It’s OK.”
The court heard that one of Harris’s two sons said his mother had “not been well” for some six weeks before the incident.
Mr Jones said the 17-year-old – who cannot be named – described how Harris had been suffering from anxiety and would stare out of their back window saying people were “stalking” them.
Mr Jones told jurors there was no dispute that Harris killed her daughter or events leading up to the incident, but they were being asked to decide whether she was not guilty of murder by reason of insanity, or guilty to manslaughter on the grounds of diminished responsibility.
Harris, from Brithweunydd Road, Trealaw, Tonypandy, denies murder and manslaughter.