A 67-year-old woman has been found guilty of killing her five-year-old stepdaughter by punishing her in a scalding hot bath nearly 50 years ago. Janice Nix was convicted of manslaughter and cruelty at Isleworth Crown Court on Tuesday, following a case that remained dormant for decades.
The Incident and Conviction
Andrea Bernard died in 1978 in Thornton Heath, south London, after suffering burns to 50% of her body. Her death was initially treated as an accident until her older brother, Desmond Bernard, now 56, went to police in 2022 with a new account of what happened. Nix was found guilty of the manslaughter of Andrea and cruelty to Desmond between October 1975 and June 1978, when he was between seven and nine years old.
Brother's Testimony
During the trial, Desmond Bernard told jurors he had initially said his sister's death was an accident because he wanted Nix to stop beating him. On June 6, 1978, Nix was furious after Andrea had ignored instructions not to leave the house and to help clean. Bernard described hearing Nix shouting at his sister and the bath running. He recounted: "I could hear Janice shouting: 'Get in the bath,' and I could hear Andrea saying: 'The bath is too hot mummy' … Then I heard screaming and splashing. Then I heard the screaming stopped and I could hear Janice calling Andrea to 'wake up'."
When Bernard entered the bathroom, he saw his sister's limp body and her "skin falling off her." Andrea died nearly six weeks later in hospital. Nix asked Bernard to say it was an accident and that they were in the garden when it happened, promising she would never beat him again.
Abuse and Fear
Bernard told jurors he lived in constant fear of Nix's beatings, which included being beaten with a belt, bitten, burned with a cigarette, and forced to eat cat food. He said he decided to change his account to "place this burden where it should go."
Prosecution's Argument
A burns expert testified that a child exposed to water hot enough to cause Andrea's injuries would have instinctively tried to get out of the bath, suggesting Nix must have forcibly held parts of Andrea's body under water. Nix, who was in her late teens at the time, was in a relationship with the children's father and acted as their stepmother.
Nix's Defense
Nix denied the charges. At an inquest in 1978, she claimed Andrea had bathed herself and later complained of itchy legs before fainting. During her trial, she admitted giving a false account to the coroner, saying she panicked over her failure to supervise Andrea. "On hindsight now, I see my negligence as a teenager," she said, adding she did not realize the bathwater was scalding hot.
Justice After Decades
Aisling Hosein of the Crown Prosecution Service stated: "No matter how much time has passed since an offence takes place, the Crown Prosecution Service will always seek to prosecute perpetrators of these horrific crimes and ensure they face the consequences of their actions."
