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Kara Alexander, 47, of Dagenham, east London(Image: PA)<\/p>\nThe judge used the incident to issue a warning about the danger of drugs after a “caring and affectionate” mother killed her two sonsKara Alexander, 47, of Dagenham, east London(Image: PA)<\/p>\n
A mother who drowned her two young sons in the bath while in a drug-induced psychotic state has been jailed for life.<\/p>\n
Kara Alexander, 47, murdered her two sons, Elijah Thomas, two, and Marley Thomas, five, in the bath at their home in Cornwallis Road on the evening of December 15 2022. She was in a psychotic state caused by smoking cannabis “every night for weeks.”<\/p>\n
Her children were found the next morning tucked up in bed after she tried to cover up her acts.<\/p>\n
The judge, Mr Justice Bennathan, referred to the children\u2019s father finding his deceased sons next to one another as \u201cthe stuff of nightmares\u201d.<\/p>\n
Alexander of Dagenham, east London, was sentenced to life imprisonment with a minimum term of 21 years and 252 days on Friday April 11 at Kingston Crown Court.<\/p>\n
Sentencing Alexander, the judge said: \u201cOn the evening of the 15th of December 2022, you\u2019d been smoking skunk.<\/p>\n
\u201cYou\u2019d been doing so every night for weeks, probably much longer. At some stage, both the boys were in their pyjamas ready for bed, with Elijah also wearing his nappy.<\/p>\n
\u201cYou drowned them both by your deliberate acts.\u201d<\/p>\n
He said he could not reach any conclusion but that in her state at that time she intended to kill the boys, pointing out that she had \u201cunspeakably\u201d held the boys under water for \u201cup to a minute or two\u201d.<\/p>\n
\u201cThe bath was probably still run from their normal evening routine and I do not think for a moment that your dreadful acts were pre-meditated,\u201d he said.<\/p>\n
After Alexander killed the boys, she dried them, put them in clean pyjamas and laid them together, tucked in under duvets, on the same bunk bed the judge said.<\/p>\n
\u201cThe next morning, their father, worried by your unusual silence, came and found them. The stuff of nightmares,\u201d he said.<\/p>\n
However, according to the judge, there was every sign Alexander was a \u201ccaring and affectionate\u201d mother to both children before the events of December 15.<\/p>\n
He pointed out that their father said Alexander \u201cnever shouted or raised her voice at the boys\u201d and \u201cnever showed violence to the boys\u201d.<\/p>\n
Mr Justice Bennathan said Alexander was in a psychotic state when she killed her sons and that it was cannabis induced.<\/p>\n
He said she had a previous psychotic episode in 2016 in which cannabis also probably played a part, but said he cannot be sure that she was aware that cannabis could trigger another psychotic state.<\/p>\n
The judge said he noted that in December 2022, Alexander spoke regularly with two members of her social circle about her heavy cannabis use, both of them knowing that she was looking after two small children.<\/p>\n
\u201cAnd at least one of them knew of your previous psychotic episode in 2016, yet neither of them warned you of any risk or sounded any note of caution at all,\u201d he said.<\/p>\n
Referring to aggravating factors in this case, Mr Justice Bennathan noted \u201cthe vulnerability of the boys by their young age and the shocking abuse of the trust that any small child ought to be able to have in their mother or father\u201d.<\/p>\n
The judge said Alexander will mourn her sons for the rest of her life.<\/p>\n
\u201cFrom all that I have read and seen of you, I have no doubt that every day when you awake you will remember and grieve for the little boys whose lives you snatched away,\u201d he said.<\/p>\n
In his sentencing remarks, Mr Justice Bennathan warned of the dangers of drugs.<\/p>\n
\u201cThe heavy use of skunk or other hyper-strong strains of cannabis can plunge people into a mental health crisis in which they may harm themselves or others.<\/p>\n
\u201cIf any drug user does not know that, it\u2019s about time they did.<\/p>\n
\u201cAt your trial, Kara Alexander, the three psychiatrists who gave evidence disagreed about a number of things, but on that they were unanimous.<\/p>\n
\u201cIt will comfort nobody connected to this case, but if these events bring home that message to even a few people, some slight good may come from what is otherwise an unmitigated tragedy.\u201d<\/p>\n","protected":false},"excerpt":{"rendered":"The judge used the incident to issue a warning about the danger of drugs after a “caring and…\n","protected":false},"author":2,"featured_media":15786,"comment_status":"","ping_status":"","sticky":false,"template":"","format":"standard","meta":{"footnotes":""},"categories":[3,4],"tags":[188,603,12,16,15],"class_list":{"0":"post-15785","1":"post","2":"type-post","3":"status-publish","4":"format-standard","5":"has-post-thumbnail","7":"category-uk","8":"category-united-kingdom","9":"tag-crime","10":"tag-national-news","11":"tag-news","12":"tag-uk","13":"tag-united-kingdom"},"share_on_mastodon":{"url":"https:\/\/pubeurope.com\/@uk\/114329227380804030","error":""},"_links":{"self":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.europesays.com\/uk\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/15785","targetHints":{"allow":["GET"]}}],"collection":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.europesays.com\/uk\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts"}],"about":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.europesays.com\/uk\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/types\/post"}],"author":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.europesays.com\/uk\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/users\/2"}],"replies":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.europesays.com\/uk\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/comments?post=15785"}],"version-history":[{"count":0,"href":"https:\/\/www.europesays.com\/uk\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/15785\/revisions"}],"wp:featuredmedia":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.europesays.com\/uk\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/media\/15786"}],"wp:attachment":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.europesays.com\/uk\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/media?parent=15785"}],"wp:term":[{"taxonomy":"category","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.europesays.com\/uk\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/categories?post=15785"},{"taxonomy":"post_tag","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.europesays.com\/uk\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/tags?post=15785"}],"curies":[{"name":"wp","href":"https:\/\/api.w.org\/{rel}","templated":true}]}}