UK woman jailed 48 years after killing five-year-old stepdaughter in hot bath

UK woman jailed 12 years for killing stepdaughter in scalding bath 48 years after the crime A British woman has been sentenced to 12 years in prison for the manslaughter of her five-year-old stepdaughter — nearly five decades after the crime was committed. Janice Nix, 67, was sentenced at Isleworth Crown Court on Thursday June 19 for the 1978 death of Andrea Bernard in Thornton Heath, south London. Andrea suffered burns to 50 percent of her body after being forced into a scalding hot bathtub and died six weeks later on July 13, 1978. The case was originally ruled an accident. It was reopened in September 2022 after Andrea's older brother Desmond Bernard, now 51, went to police with a new account — testifying that as a child he had been pressured to say the incident was an accident. He told the court he heard his sister screaming that the water was too hot. Medical experts testified that Andrea's injuries were inconsistent with an accident — a child exposed to water of that temperature would instinctively try to escape, meaning Nix must have held parts of the child's body underwater. Nix had initially claimed Andrea drew her own bath and later complained of itchy legs. She later admitted giving a false account because she was in a panic. Sentencing Nix, Mr Justice Nicholas Lavender told her: "I am sure that you ran the bath, you knew how hot it was, you told Andrea to get in the bath, she said it was too hot, but you either put her in the bath or made her get into it." Nix was also convicted of cruelty to Desmond Bernard between 1975 and 1978. She had previously worked for the UK Probation Service between 2014 and 2019 and won the service's diversity and engagement award in 2015.