Stepmum guilty of 1978 scalding killing of girl, 5

A woman has been found guilty of killing her five-year-old stepdaughter by scalding her in a hot bath in 1978.

Janice Nix, 67, who had denied the manslaughter of Andrea Bernard, punished her by forcing her to take the scalding bath in Thornton Heath, south London, nearly 50 years ago.

Andrea suffered serious burns to half of her body and died in hospital on 13 July 1978, five weeks after the incident. The jury was told Andrea's death had been treated as an accident until her older brother Desmond Bernard went to the police in 2022.

Nix, of Clapham, south London, was also convicted of cruelty to Bernard between October 1975 and June 1978, when he was aged between seven and nine.

• Warning: distressing details are included in this article

Bernard, now 56, said Nix regularly beat the children, even for things as petty as not folding their clothes "to her standards".

Giving evidence during the trial, Bernard, now 56, tearfully told jurors he had initially described his sister's death as an accident because he wanted Nix to stop beating him.

Bernard said that Nix beat him with a belt, burned him with a cigarette, bit him and made him eat cat food.

He said Nix regularly beat the children, even for not folding their clothes "to her standards".

Bernard described Nix as physically "strong" with a "heavy-set build".

Jurors heard that on 6 June 1978, Nix was "furious" after Andrea ignored instructions not to leave the house and to help clean instead.

Nix shouted at Andrea in an "extremely loud" voice before beating her, the court heard.

Bernard said he later heard the bath running.

He went on: "I could hear Janice shouting 'get in the bath' and I could hear Andrea saying 'the bath is too hot mummy'.

"I could hear Janice shouting 'get in the bath, get in the bath' and then I heard screaming and splashing.

"Then I heard the screaming stopped and I could hear Janice calling Andrea to 'wake up, wake up'."

Asked by prosecutor Kerry Broome how Nix sounded, Bernard replied: "She sounded scared".

He said he then entered the bathroom and saw Nix cradling Andrea, who was "limp" and wrapped in a towel.

Bernard said that Nix asked him to say it was an accident and "to say that we were in the garden when it happened and that she would never beat me again".

"I lied, I told everyone that story," he said.

Asked why, Bernard replied: "Because I didn't feel protected, I just wanted it to stop."

He told jurors he lived in "constant fear" of Nix's beatings and did not tell anyone because he feared being "punished more".

'Justice and accountability'

Speaking about why he decided to tell others about his sister's death, Bernard said: "I couldn't carry on dealing with it, so that's what I did."

He added: "To place this burden where it should go."

In a written statement issued following the court hearing, Bernard said the guilty verdicts "bring a sense of justice and accountability" for the "incredibly horrific and tragic events of 48 years ago".

"The degrading and sometimes sadistic punishment and beatings kept out of view of my parents and other family and friends culminated in my young sister Andrea's life being so cruelly taken away from my family."

He added: "While no verdict can bring Andrea back or undo the impact and pain this has had on myself and my family, I hope today's outcome sends a clear message that such actions have consequences and that victims should never be afraid to come forward, no matter how much time has passed."

'Didn't stack up'

David Malone, a deputy chief crown prosecutor in London, described the case against Nix as the result of a "remarkable investigation".

He said the case was the oldest Crown Prosecution Service (CPS) London homicide prosecutors could recall handling, with Andrea's death predating the organisation itself by eight years.

He said prosecutors faced the "wholly different challenge" of building a case nearly five decades after the incident, with many investigators and experts involved in the original inquest into Andrea's death having died.

"We take for granted now CCTV, audio, mobile phones - all of the technology that generate documentary evidence," he said.

"What we found, looking at that and looking at what Desmond had to say, is that Janice Nix's story simply didn't stack up."

Malone said Nix's account changed, and that the investigation hinged on Bernard's testimony and the expert reconstruction of Andrea's burns.

He added that "you can't stereotype" when victims may come forward, saying some speak immediately while others wait years or even decades, and that it was "not unusual" for accounts to emerge up to 40 years later.