A Good Mum
"There is consistent evidence that Mrs. Boots may have stopped taking the medication in the weeks, or days before the day in question, although to a degree she may have hidden this fact from others." Prosecutor Edward Brown, Old Bailey criminal court, LondonFelicia Boots, mother of two very young children came from a family with a history of mental illness. Her brother killed himself in 2007, as a result of serious clinical depression. After the birth of her first child, fourteen months earlier, suffering post-partum depression, her doctors prescribed anti-depression medication for Ms. Boots.
She explained in her own defence that when she found herself pregnant again in 2011 she felt she should stop the medication, fearing it might be harmful to her baby. In fact, stopping the medication without conferring with a medical professional, on her own initiative, and clearly without full medical knowledge, her decision proved extremely harmful, to both her children.
After the birth of the second child she suffered a dangerous mental health situation that left her debilitated psychologically. Her post-partum depression resulted in her suffocating both her nine-week old son and her fourteen-month-old daughter. Ms. Boots had moved to Britain from Canada with her husband when he accepted a position there.
Perhaps if they had remained in Canada where familial support could be close by and her condition noted, ringing alarms, none of this might have resulted. But this is speculation. Her husband might not have noticed his wife's downward-spiralling mental condition. Or if he had, might have reasoned she would work her way out of it. Mental illness is a profoundly unknown malady.
Ms. Boots argued on her own behalf that she was victim to forces "beyond her control" when she killed her two infants. On their move to London from Toronto, Ms. Boots was normal enough and ambitious enough to launch a successful U.K.-based jewellery company. She was obviously bright, competitive and aspiring.
It took mere hours, according to testimony, for the 35-year-old mother to become severely delusional, believing that the only way to prevent her children from being taken from her was to kill them. She was charged originally with murder. However, prosecutors accepted her plea of manslaughter due to diminished responsibility.
In a letter to the court, Ms. Boots wrote: "Part of me will always be missing but just know that I am a good person. I was a good mum and I never meant this to happen. I am truly sorry." She has obviously forgiven herself. And has expressed contrition for abusing societal convention in withdrawing life from her two infants.
She is under psychiatric care, although it seems she will shortly be released, as her 'condition' improves.
"Although the results of Mrs. Boots' actions were profoundly tragic, what occurred was not criminal activity in the sense that expression is normally understood. I accept what she did to the two children, that she and her husband loved and nurtured, were the results of physical and biological factors beyond her control." Judge Adrian Fulford
On may 9, 2012, Jeffrey Boots returned home to his southwest London mansion, and there he discovered his wife with cuts on her wrists and neck. The bodies of his two children were in a bedroom closet, dead.
The mother of his children has been spared prison, absolved of responsibility of a crime she is held to be innocent of.
Labels: Health, Human Fallibility, Human Relations, Justice
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