Mother Gets Life For Heroin Death Of DisAbled Son

I haven’t covered this case yet because I was waiting for the final verdict to be decided. So, here it is.

A mother convicted of murdering her disabled son by injecting him with heroin at a Hertfordshire care home has been jailed for life.

Frances Inglis, 57, of Dagenham, Essex, denied murdering Thomas Inglis, 22, on 21 November 2008 and an earlier attempt to kill him on 4 September 2007.

But a jury at the Old Bailey found her guilty of both charges. She must serve a minimum of nine years.

Mr Inglis suffered brain damage when he fell out of an ambulance in July 2007.

The jury reached their verdicts by a majority of 10 to two after deliberating for more than six hours.

‘Tragedy and grief’

There were cries of “shame on you” from the public gallery as the verdicts were read out.

Before the jury went out to deliberate, Judge Brian Barker told them “there is no concept in law of mercy killing” and it is still killing.

Judge Barker said there was no doubt Ms Inglis had tried to take her son’s life in September 2007 and succeeded using an “identical” method 14 months later.

In summing up, the judge said the background of “tragedy and grief” will have struck a chord with all who had heard it.

Frances Inglis said she wanted her son to have a painless death

He said: “It would be extraordinary if we didn’t feel empathy with the family and what Mrs Inglis had to face.”

During the trial Inglis said: “For Tom to live that living hell – I couldn’t leave my child like that.

“I did it with love in my heart, for Tom, so I don’t see it as murder.”

Inglis told the court she had started to research her son’s condition on the internet within days of his accident.

She also claimed she had to beg hospital staff to give him some relief for his “terrible pain”.

Detectives investigating the first incident in September 2007 found notes stored under the stairs at her home in Dagenham, east London, the Old Bailey heard.

Mother driven ‘insane’

One said: “People keep saying Tom isn’t suffering. How do they know? Can they know the terror of knowing you cannot control anything anymore?

“Can they know the agony of being denied pain relief just to see his reaction?”

She later told police: “When I wrote this I was sort of off my head really,” the court heard.

Inglis said she was convinced that the doctor treating her son at Queens Hospital in Romford, Essex, was lying about his chances of recovery.

The jury heard from Inglis’s other son Alex who said his brother’s injuries had driven his mother almost “insane”.