Woman found guilty of killing five-year-old girl in scalding bath
Molly Russell’s father urges Starmer to ‘follow the evidence’ stop harm reaching children on social media
Janice Nix, 67, has been found guilty of killing a five-year-old girl, Andrea Bernard, whom she scalded in a hot bath as punishment in 1978.
Andrea’s death in Thornton Heath, south London, was initially treated as an accident until her older brother, Desmond Bernard, approached police in 2022 with a new account.
Nix, from Clapham, south London, was also found guilty of cruelty to Mr Bernard between October 1975 and June 1978, when he was aged seven to nine.
Desmond Bernard, now 56, told jurors he initially described his sister’s death as an accident as he wanted Nix to stop beating him.
The court heard that Nix, previously Janice Thomas, was in a relationship with the children’s father and was in effect their stepmother.
