UK Diminished Responsibility Case of Untreated Postpartum Depression
Case summary
In May 2012, Boots, a Canadian woman living in London, suffocated her two young children, a toddler son and an infant daughter, at the family's home while suffering from what psychiatrists described as severe untreated postnatal depression with paranoid features. She had stopped her medication out of fear it would affect her baby. At the Old Bailey, prosecutors accepted her guilty pleas to manslaughter on the grounds of diminished responsibility and dropped the murder charges. The judge imposed an indefinite hospital order rather than imprisonment, saying the case called for treatment. The case prompted UK discussion of medication decisions and support for mothers during pregnancy and breastfeeding.
Mental-health context
Boots suffered from severe postpartum depression and paranoid fears, and had stopped taking her antidepressant medication out of fear it would harm her baby through breastfeeding; psychiatric evidence supported diminished responsibility.
Status / outcome
Manslaughter by diminished responsibility (2012); indefinite psychiatric hospital order
Sources
- https://www.cbc.ca/news/world/canadian-mom-pleads-guilty-in-u-k-court-to-babies-death-1.1299342
- https://gulfnews.com/world/europe/mother-suffering-from-depression-kills-six-week-old-baby-1.1254340
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