Essex<\/a>, laid a false trail, creating the impression she had gone to a friend\u2019s house and later to Epping Forest, when in fact she was hiding in the loft at her address with her son.<\/p>\nShe added the antihistamine promethazine, which can induce sedation, and the antidepressant mirtazapine to juice and milk in Oakley\u2019s baby bottles.<\/p>\n
The judge said that after the family court hearing that ordered Oakley\u2019s removal, social workers and police sought to find Barnett to remove the toddler.<\/p>\n
\u201cAs the evening progressed concern grew for your welfare and Oakley\u2019s safety,\u201d the judge said. He said Barnett\u2019s car was found in Epping Forest, leading to a search with a helicopter and police dogs.<\/p>\n
Police attended her address shortly before midnight and \u201cheard the sound of a baby crying coming from the loft\u201d, the judge said.<\/p>\n
He said an officer tried to talk her down but at 12.16am on 9 November \u201cthe situation changed dramatically \u2013 in answer to a question from a police officer, you said \u2018I killed him\u2019\u201d.<\/p>\n
The judge said officers \u201cimmediately forced entry\u201d and found Oakley unresponsive and that Barnett had tried to take her own life.<\/p>\n
Oakley, who was 14 months old, died in hospital on 31 December 2024.<\/p>\n
The judge, sentencing Barnett to life in prison with a minimum term of 22 years on Friday, said: \u201cThis was the killing of a very young and vulnerable child wholly dependent on you brought about by your deliberate actions.\u201d<\/p>\n
He said he was \u201ccertain\u201d Barnett had \u201cset about planning (her) own death in advance\u201d.<\/p>\n
The judge added: \u201cI consider it at least possible it wasn\u2019t until 8 November you came to the view that if you could not have Oakley, no one else could have him.\u201d<\/p>\n
The judge acknowledged she had a \u201crecognised mental health disorder\u201d, and that her five older children had already been removed from her care.<\/p>\n
Jonathan Higgs KC, mitigating, said the five children were removed \u201cas she was unable to look after them herself\u201d. He said she was of previous good character.<\/p>\n
Barnett had denied murder but was found guilty last week after an earlier trial.<\/p>\n","protected":false},"excerpt":{"rendered":"A mother who poisoned her one-year-old son with a lethal cocktail of prescription medications added to milk in…\n","protected":false},"author":2,"featured_media":623529,"comment_status":"","ping_status":"","sticky":false,"template":"","format":"standard","meta":{"footnotes":""},"categories":[3],"tags":[59,57,58,50,56,54,55],"class_list":["post-623528","post","type-post","status-publish","format-standard","has-post-thumbnail","category-united-kingdom","tag-gb","tag-great-britain","tag-greatbritain","tag-news","tag-uk","tag-united-kingdom","tag-unitedkingdom"],"_links":{"self":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/uk\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/623528","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=623528"}],"version-history":[{"count":0,"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/uk\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/623528\/revisions"}],"wp:featuredmedia":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/uk\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/media\/623529"}],"wp:attachment":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/uk\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/media?parent=623528"}],"wp:term":[{"taxonomy":"category","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/uk\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/categories?post=623528"},{"taxonomy":"post_tag","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/uk\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/tags?post=623528"}],"curies":[{"name":"wp","href":"https:\/\/api.w.org\/{rel}","templated":true}]}}