Christine Laing QC and Alex Williams have successfully prosecuted Fiona Donnison, the Sussex mother who killed her 2 young children in the ultimate act of revenge on their father. The defendant, who had claimed to be not guilty of murder on the grounds of diminished responsibility, was unanimously convicted and sentenced to two life sentences with a minimum term of 32 years.

The four and a half week trial, before Mr Justice Nicol at Lewes Crown Court, involved highly complex expert psychological and psychatric evidence. The defence had claimed diminished responsibility, in that she had been suffering from moderate to severe depression at the time of the killings. The prosecution successfully demonstrated that the defendant was feigning symptoms of mental health during her treatment in hospital whilst on remand awaiting trial. 

The prosecution had contended that the defendant had narcissistic personality traits and that the killings had been her way of venting her fury at what she perceived was the father's rejection of her. She smothered the two children in their sleep and packed their bodies into holdalls before driving them over to the former family home. She broke into the empty house but her former partner did not return that night and, in the morning, having taken an overdose of Nytol, the defendant handed herself into the police station, saying that she had killed her children, before collapsing and thereafter claiming amnesia.

The bodies of Harry,3, and Elise,2, were found in the holdalls in the boot of her locked car, parked round the corner from the house.

The medical picture was a highly complicated one. The first two consultant forensic psychiatrists to examine her each concluded that she had been suffering from moderate to severe depressive illness at the time of the killings. The prosecution were able to adduce evidence that she feigned symptoms on remand and to demonstrate that, inconsistent with her self-report to various doctors, she had been functioning normally in the lead up to and at the time of the killings.

The interplay of the defendant's mental health and her prominent narcissistic personality traits presented difficulties for all the medical experts, but Christine Laing QC and Alex Williams were able successfully to secure her conviction on counts of murder in respect of both children.

http://www.bbc.co.uk/news/uk-england-14459954

http://www.dailymail.co.uk/news/article-2024179/Fiona-Donnison-trial-Mother-smothered-2-toddlers-accused-killing-child.html

http://www.telegraph.co.uk/news/uknews/crime/8691130/Mother-guilty-of-murdering-her-two-children-to-hurt-their-father-in-most-extreme-way-possible.html

http://www.guardian.co.uk/uk/2011/aug/09/mother-guilty-murdering-children