Mother jailed for seven years for killing her autistic son with bleach

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Mother jailed for seven years for killing her autistic son with bleach

Cheston, Courts Correspondent

1 Apr 2011

The mother who killed her 12-year-old autistic son with bleach was jailed for

seven years at the Old today.

Satpal Kaur Singh, 44, poisoned Ajit hours after refusing to co-operate with

social service workers who had indicated that they planned to take the boy into

care.

Today social workers were attacked in court for failing to act sooner and

recognise her mental health had been deteriorating since 2004. A serious case

review by Barking and Dagenham social services is under way.

Singh, of Barking, pleaded guilty to manslaughter on the ground of diminished

responsibility. But her condition is not serious enough to be treated at a

secure hospital, the court was told.

Sentencing, the Recorder of London Judge Beaumont recognised Singh had

shown love and devotion to her son. He said: " Your deteriorating mental health

robbed you of the proper insight into what was going wrong and erected real

obstacles between you and the agencies trying to help you.

" You faced, as you saw it, the prospect of Ajit being taken away from you. But

you killed him.

" The degree of premeditation and, in my judgment, you were making a statement

without any consideration for his interests and the breach of trust and duty you

owed him, can't be overlooked. "

Earlier Hislop, QC, for the defence, said that medical notes in April 2009

noted Singh was on the brink of " a possible mental breakdown " . He added: " Her

neighbours knew, school teachers knew, social services knew, but the tragedy for

Ajit was that nothing was done.

" This is a woman who everyone acknowledged was not coping and has not coped for

many years. Of course, she refused mental health assessment. Because she was so

mentally unwell, she had no insight into the enormity of her own mental health

problems. "

Singh claimed to have been hearing voices when she killed her son at the family

home in Barking in February last year. She said she was told: " It's time, it's

the end, God's calling us. "

She placed the bleach in front of the child and told him in punjabi: " Pick it

up, you have to do it. " She drank bleach herself, but recovered in hospital.

The court was told that her personality disorder, with paranoid and obsessive

compulsion traits, was not suitable for treatment in a mental hospital rather

than prison.