{"id":181789,"date":"2025-10-06T14:16:11","date_gmt":"2025-10-06T14:16:11","guid":{"rendered":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/uk\/181789\/"},"modified":"2025-10-06T14:16:11","modified_gmt":"2025-10-06T14:16:11","slug":"mother-42-who-never-recovered-from-postnatal-depression-drowned-toddler-daughter-two-at-a-beauty-spot-after-stopping-anti-depressants","status":"publish","type":"post","link":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/uk\/181789\/","title":{"rendered":"Mother, 42, who never recovered from postnatal depression drowned toddler daughter, two, at a beauty spot after stopping anti-depressants"},"content":{"rendered":"

A mother never recovered from postnatal depression<\/a> drowned her toddler daughter at a beauty spot after she stopped taking her anti-depressants.<\/p>\n

Alice Mackey, 42, of Oakhanger, Hampshire, pleaded guilty to the manslaughter of Annabel Mackey by way of diminished responsibility, after the child was found in a pond in Kingsley, Hampshire .<\/p>\n

The toddler was reported missing from her \u00a3600,000 home in the neighbouring village of Bordon, on September 10, 2023, where she lived with her husband Peter.<\/p>\n

A search was launched and Annabel was found a short time later at Kingsley Pond, some 300 metres from their home.<\/p>\n

The youngster was taken to hospital in a serious condition but died the following afternoon when the life support machine was switched off.<\/p>\n

As Mackey was jailed for four years, Mr Justice Saini, said that she was under the ‘delusional’ belief that ‘the best way to protect her (Annabel) from a bad mother was to kill her, you falsely believed she was not flourishing under your care and, in fact, was suffering under your care’.<\/p>\n

He said: ‘You considered in your deluded state that this was some form of mercy for Annabel.’<\/p>\n

\"Alice <\/p>\n

Alice Mackey, 42, of Oakhanger, Hampshire, drowned her two-year-old daughter Annabel<\/p>\n

\"Annabel <\/p>\n

Annabel Mackey, two, was drowned by her mother in a pond\u00a0<\/p>\n

\"The <\/p>\n

The pond where in Kingsley Common, Hampshire, where Annabel was drowned<\/p>\n

At Mackey’s sentencing, the mother claimed she had ‘no idea’ that she was ‘approaching crisis’ when she took her ‘beautiful’ daughter to a lake 300 metres from their home and held her underwater.<\/p>\n

The teaching assistant – who had ‘never fully recovered from postpartum depression’ – then called the police and told them that her daughter had gone missing and she believed someone had ‘entered’ the house and taken her.<\/p>\n

Mackey had previously been prescribed the antidepressant sertraline for her mental health issues, but had stopped taking the drug in the months before her daughter’s death.<\/p>\n

When she drowned the toddler, the mother felt she was ‘protecting’ her daughter and that ‘there was only one way to make Annabel safe, to protect Annabel from Annabel’s bad mother Alice’, a court heard.<\/p>\n

But prosecutors said the killing ‘was premeditated’ as Mackey ‘repeatedly lied and sought to cover up what she had done.’<\/p>\n

‘She plainly recognised that what she had done was wrong and tried to lie her way out of responsibility,’ prosecutor Adam Vaitilingam KC told Winchester Crown Court.<\/p>\n

Mackey told officers that she had put the youngster to bed at around 3.45pm, but upon returning to her bedroom an hour later, she noticed that Annabel was not there.<\/p>\n

Mr Vaitilingam KC said: ‘She said she left the front door open because of the hot weather and had been watching television downstairs. In fact, none of this was true.’<\/p>\n

Mackey said that someone must have ‘entered’ the house and taken Annabel.<\/p>\n

At 5.15pm, the police arrived at the pond and found Mackey ‘calling out for help’ and ‘kneeling over Annabel’.<\/p>\n

She had told police on the phone that she found Annabel in the pond while on the phone to them.<\/p>\n

Mr Vaitilingam KC said: ‘It was clear that Annabel had been in the water long enough for her to stop breathing and her heart to stop beating.’<\/p>\n

Police commenced CPR and the toddler was taken to the hospital but she they were sadly unable to save her.<\/p>\n

Annabel died in hospital on September 11. A postmortem examination revealed the toddler had died as a result of brain damage and bronchopneumonia.<\/p>\n

Mr Vaitilingam KC said Annabel was ‘suffocated by being held underwater’, adding: ‘The killing was premeditated in that Ms Mackey took Annabel to the pond with the intention of killing her.<\/p>\n

‘She repeatedly lied and sought to cover up what she had done.<\/p>\n

‘She plainly recognised that what she had done was wrong and tried to lie her way out of responsibility.’<\/p>\n

The court heard that Mackey had a history of mental health issues and ‘never fully recovered from postpartum depression’.<\/p>\n

She was sectioned in the 2021 after her husband ‘stopped her from leaving the house by a window’.<\/p>\n

Mackey was consequently diagnosed with postpartum psychosis, anxiety and depression was prescribed the anti-depressant sertraline and anti-psychotic medication.<\/p>\n

The court heard that in January, before Annabel’s death, Mackey stopped taking the sertaline and ‘had not gone back on it at the time of killing Annabel’.<\/p>\n

The court heard at the time of Annabel’s death the mother ‘certainly had no idea that she was approaching crisis’.<\/p>\n

She was said to be experiencing a ‘slow but steady decline’ in her mental health and confidence.<\/p>\n

\"Police <\/p>\n

Police outside the family’s home in Bordon, Hampshire<\/p>\n

\"Mackey <\/p>\n

Mackey called the police and told them her daughter was missing before telling them she had found her daughter at the lake\u00a0\u00a0<\/p>\n

The court heard that it wasn’t until Mackey’s plea hearing that her husband found out what his wife had done.<\/p>\n

In a victim impact statement, Mr Mackey told the court: ‘My name is Peter Mackey and I am the father of Annabel who was tragically killed.<\/p>\n

‘Her loss has had a devastating effect on every part of my life. I’m deeply traumatised by the thought about how my daughter was killed.<\/p>\n

‘I’m tormented by imagining how frightened she must have been.<\/p>\n

‘I feel constant guilt that I was not home to protect her on the day she died.’<\/p>\n

He continued: ‘Annabel lived in a safe, comfortable house with her own play room for reading and playing.<\/p>\n

‘She always had the support of multiple relatives to ensure she developed into a great person.<\/p>\n

‘I grieve for the loss of Annabel’s life and for the milestones she will never reach.’<\/p>\n

\"Despite <\/p>\n

Despite the best efforts of police and paramedics, they were unable to save Annabel\u00a0<\/p>\n

Patrick Gibbs, mitigating, told the court that Mackey is ‘un-endingly sorry’, adding: ‘She is sorry for taking Annabel’s life, she is sorry for all the pain she has caused to everyone who knew Annabel and loved Annabel.<\/p>\n

‘She regrets every moment of what happened, and she wishes above everything in the world that Annabel were still here with them.’<\/p>\n

The court heard that all Mackey wanted was for her and Mr Mackey – who works in IT – to have children.<\/p>\n

Mr Gibbs said she ‘couldn’t have tried harder’ and went through five years of miscarriages, ectopic pregnancies, and ’round after round’ of IVF.<\/p>\n

He told the court that Mackey ‘couldn’t have loved anyone more than Annabel’ but instead of the ‘warm bliss of happiness’ she expected of motherhood, she described feeling as if she had been ‘plunged into darkness’.<\/p>\n

It was heard that Mackey felt as if she was ‘protecting her child’ and that in her head she thought ‘there was only one way to make Annabel safe, to protect Annabel from Annabel’s bad mother Alice’.<\/p>\n

Mr Gibbs read out a statement from Mackey, in which she said: ‘I will never have another child. Annabel was my child and no child could replace her. In any event, I don’t think I could ever be well enough to have another child.’<\/p>\n

Mr Gibbs added: ‘She killed a person she loved more deeply of all.<\/p>\n

‘The thing she longed for was to be a wife and mother and now she is neither.’<\/p>\n","protected":false},"excerpt":{"rendered":"A mother never recovered from postnatal depression drowned her toddler daughter at a beauty spot after she stopped…\n","protected":false},"author":2,"featured_media":181790,"comment_status":"","ping_status":"","sticky":false,"template":"","format":"standard","meta":{"footnotes":""},"categories":[3],"tags":[97,59,57,58,50,56,54,55],"class_list":{"0":"post-181789","1":"post","2":"type-post","3":"status-publish","4":"format-standard","5":"has-post-thumbnail","7":"category-united-kingdom","8":"tag-dailymail","9":"tag-gb","10":"tag-great-britain","11":"tag-greatbritain","12":"tag-news","13":"tag-uk","14":"tag-united-kingdom","15":"tag-unitedkingdom"},"_links":{"self":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/uk\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/181789","targetHints":{"allow":["GET"]}}],"collection":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/uk\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts"}],"about":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/uk\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/types\/post"}],"author":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/uk\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/users\/2"}],"replies":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/uk\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/comments?post=181789"}],"version-history":[{"count":0,"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/uk\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/181789\/revisions"}],"wp:featuredmedia":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/uk\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/media\/181790"}],"wp:attachment":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/uk\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/media?parent=181789"}],"wp:term":[{"taxonomy":"category","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/uk\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/categories?post=181789"},{"taxonomy":"post_tag","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/uk\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/tags?post=181789"}],"curies":[{"name":"wp","href":"https:\/\/api.w.org\/{rel}","templated":true}]}}