February 2018

Deeside mum jailed for life for murdering her seven-week-old baby son

Deeside mum Hannah Turtle, 22, was jailed for life after she changed her plea and admitted murdering her own seven week old baby son James.

Mr Justice Clive Lewis, sitting at Mold Crown Court, ordered that she should serve a minimum of 14 years and nine months years before she could apply for parole.

The judge said that she suffered from a personality disorder which reduced her culpability.

James was vulnerable and she had breached her position of trust as a mother He was eight weeks old deserving of the protection that she as a mother should have provided. “Instead you suffocated him,” he said.

James’ grandmother Kathleen Hughes said in a victim impact statement read to the court by prosecuting barrister David Elias QC as pure evil.

She could not believe what a woman who had come across as a lovely person had done to her family.

Turtle had denied murder, three charges of ill-treatment and two charges of administering James with her own anti-depression medication in his milk.

But on Tuesday, on day seven of her trial, she admitted all offences and told how she heard voices in her head telling her that she was a bad mother and did not deserve the baby.

Turtle received six months for cruelty and 12 months for administering a noxious substance, to be served concurrently.