Delusional mother with depression killed baby she ‘loved to bits’

Carly Jacques, 32, who appeared tearful in the dock at Leicester Crown Court, was made the subject of a hospital order yesterday after admitting infanticide.

The court heard Jacques, who was suffering post-natal depression at the time of the killing, had told police: “I just thought we could go to sleep and we would both be safe.”

Sentencing the mother yesterday, Judge Michael Pert QC said: “I am satisfied that what led you to that terrible act was illness rather than wickedness.”

He said the case called for Jacques to be given treatment rather than punishment.

The court was told Jacques and her husband of five years Mark were overjoyed at the birth of their first child Skye last March.

The baby was a healthy child and there was no cause for concern for her welfare in the three months after her birth. But seven months later, Jacques smothered her baby and slashed her own wrists and neck in a bid to “protect herself and her daughter”.

The court was told Jacques had started to show signs of post-natal depression in June after her husband Mark, who she had been with for 14 years, admitted he had been having an affair with one of her best friends and that the woman had fallen pregnant.

The relationship had been going on for more than 18 months.

After this, Carly Jacques started to use cannabis, at one point using £60 worth of the drug every day or two. Anxiety and depression set in and she started to suffer delusions.

She thought neighbours were talking about her and wanted to cause her and her daughter harm, and she told people she was being drugged.

Jacques also told people she thought there was a body in her attic and believed she was being filmed in her home. In fact, there were two security cameras outside her home but they pointed away from the property.

In August, she went to her GP and was prescribed Prozac but she only took this for a short period. She was also referred to a counsellor but only went to two sessions.

Texts to her mother in the weeks before Skye’s death showed she was troubled and was suffering delusions.

A week before she killed her daughter, she tried to commit suicide and was only stopped by her husband and parents.

On October 30 last year, Mr Jacques went downstairs to find his wife sat clutching a visibly blue Skye to her chest. She was holding a yellow blade in her hand.

She told police: “I have never hurt my daughter before. I love her to bits.”

The judge sentenced Mrs Jacques to a Section 37 Hospital Order. She was also handed a Section 41 Restriction Order under the Mental Health Act 1983.