A 67-year-old woman was sentenced to 12 years in prison Friday for the 1978 killing of her five-year-old stepdaughter, nearly half a century after the child's death was ruled an accident.
Janice Nix was found guilty of manslaughter for forcing Andrea Bernard into a scalding bath at their home in Thornton Heath, south London. Andrea suffered burns to 50 percent of her body and died in hospital on July 13, 1978, five weeks after the incident. Nix was also convicted of cruelty to Andrea's older brother Desmond Bernard between October 1975 and June 1978, when he was between seven and nine years old.
The case was reopened after Desmond Bernard, now 56, went to police in 2022. He told investigators that on June 6, 1978, Nix was furious after Andrea ignored orders not to leave the house and to help with cleaning. He said he later heard the bath running after Andrea had already suffered a beating.
Bernard told the court: "I could hear Janice shouting 'get in the bath' and I could hear Andrea saying 'the bath is too hot mummy'." He then heard screaming before Nix began calling for Andrea to wake up. He entered the bathroom and found Nix cradling Andrea, who was limp and wrapped in a towel.
A burns expert testified that a child exposed to water hot enough to cause those injuries would instinctively try to stand up rather than stay seated. Prosecutors argued Nix must have forcibly held part of Andrea's body underwater.
Nix had asked Bernard to lie about what happened. "Your actions robbed me of my sister, and my sister of her life," he told Nix directly in a victim impact statement read in court. He added: "The last memories I have of my sister's life are piercing screams and lying about her death to survive."
Bernard also addressed Nix's behavior at the funeral, saying: "Your contrived grief at Andrea's funeral, the lies, the tears. You fooled my family because they couldn't imagine the unimaginable. You took their kindness for weakness and you manipulated them so that you couldn't be found out."
A statement from Andrea's mother, Angela Bernard, was also read to the court. She described her daughter as the "light of my life" and a sweet, loving, happy child.
Sentencing Nix at Isleworth Crown Court, Judge Justice Lavender said: "I'm sure that you ran the bath, you knew how hot it was... You heard her screams." The judge added: "At the very least the risk ought to have been obvious to you."
Nix was shaking her head and appeared to be mouthing words during Bernard's statement. She will serve two-thirds of her sentence before she is eligible for release on licence.
