Step-mum found GUILTY of 1978 manslaughter after FORCING 5-year-old girl into scalding bath

Ajouté : 2026-05-28

[00:00:00]You're under arrest. Okay, for the manslaughter of Andrew Bernard on the 13th July 1978.

[00:00:07]You're also under arrest for the assault and ill-treatment of Desmond Bernard between the 1st of October 1975 and the 5th of June 1978.

[00:00:17]Okay, you do not have to say anything but it may harm your defense if you do not mention when questioned something which you later rely on in court.

[00:00:23]Anything you do say may be given in evidence. All right? Your arrest is necessary to prevent your disappearance and hinder any prosecution.

[00:00:32]All right?

[00:00:32]>> Andrea um was living with her brother um Desmond and um uh their biological father Bernard uh and Janice Nick uh Janice Nick herself was a younger woman um at the time, 19 years of age.

[00:00:51]And uh Desmond was somebody in the period he was nine at in 1978.

[00:00:57]But the period the trial is looking at is between sort of seven and nine years of age.

[00:01:02]And uh tragically uh [clears throat] Andrea um suffers uh from a scalding hot bath 50% burns across her body, full thickness burns from being in a hot bath.

[00:01:15]And the question is how did that happen?

[00:01:19]I don't know whether you recognize me, DC Brand Homer.

[00:01:22]We met a couple of years ago.

[00:01:25]Yeah. Yes. Um I need to speak to you privately but at the moment I need your passport and your phone, please.

[00:01:36]There's my phone. Thank you very much.

[00:01:39]I'm not going to do anything with them.

[00:01:40]It's just so you can't make any calls.

[00:01:41]That's all it is.

[00:01:50]Passport. Thank you very much. Is this one passport? Yeah, I've got my Antigua Can I have that as well then, please?

[00:01:55]Thank you very much. Cheers. That's great. If you just grab your stuff.

[00:01:58]Yeah. Yep.

[00:02:00]Everything I don't You've got anything up above with you?

[00:02:02]You sure? I just don't want to leave anything here. Just make sure you've got absolutely everything.

[00:02:05]Okay? Yeah. Yeah. Absolutely certain you've got everything? Yeah. Okay.

[00:02:09]Right. Let's go.

[00:02:10]Um well, um at that time there was a coroner's inquest into that, and the coroner's inquest determined on the evidence um available at the time that this was caused by an accident, albeit with some negligence from Janice Nickson allowing her daughter, she said, or stepdaughter to bathe herself alone.

[00:02:30]Um but in 2022, uh Desmond, then living uh in America, um decided to tell um his story. Uh a different story to the one he told at the time as a as a young man, um but told the story that said um actually uh Janice Nickson has culpability for this.

[00:02:51]Um she uh not in my presence, but I heard this. I was in the house.

[00:02:56]Um she told my sister to get into that uh bath.

[00:03:01]Um it was hot, and she protested, uh but it was that coercion for her to get into that bath, and that's how she suffered her injury injuries, and that was in the context of some wider mistreatment of both him and his sister. So, 2022 this came to light, and um the police took up the investigation from there, and I said this story of this extraordinary case um started at that particular moment.

[00:03:30]I would like to praise the extraordinary bravery of Desmond Bernard in coming forward and giving voice to his little sister, whose death 48 years ago had long been believed to be a tragic accident.

[00:03:43]Today's verdict finally confirms the dark truth.

[00:03:46]The 5-year-old Andrea, a child who should have been safe in her own home, died as a result of horrific burn injuries caused by the very person entrusted to protect her and likely as punishment for minor mischief.

[00:04:00]Without Mr. Bernard's courage, Janice Nix would never have been held accountable for her actions.

[00:04:06]As a frightened 8-year-old boy, who as today's verdicts prove, was himself subjected to physical abuse by his stepmother, Desmond was present in the family home when Andrea was immersed in a scalding hot bath.

[00:04:20]She survived for almost 6 weeks enduring what must have been unimaginable pain.

[00:04:26]Silenced at the time by fear, Desmond carried that burden for many years.

[00:04:31]As an adult, he found the strength to speak with remarkable dignity and resolve and that courage has now delivered justice for his sister and for Desmond himself.

[00:04:43]In stark contrast to the strength shown by Andrea's brother, are the selfish and cowardly actions of their stepmother, Mrs. Nix, then known as Thomas, who for decades maintained a web of lies misleading authorities, deceiving the family and attempting to rewrite the truth.

[00:05:01]Whatever image she later sought to present, true accountability and genuine atonement begin with honesty and that is something she consistently avoided.

[00:05:12]Andrea had an all too brief childhood.

[00:05:15]She never had the chance to grow up.

[00:05:17]She was denied the life she deserved.

[00:05:20]Today's verdict cannot change that, but it does finally acknowledge the truth of what happened to her.

[00:05:26]Our thoughts remain with Andrea's family.

[00:05:29]At the heart of this case is a little girl who should never have been harmed and the circumstances of her death concocted as a fictional narrative.

[00:05:38]Today is about truth, accountability and ensuring that Andrea's story is finally told with honesty.

[00:05:45]Time does not diminish the seriousness of a crime such as this.

[00:05:49]Justice may be delayed, but it is never beyond reach.

[00:05:55]So, this is a statement from Desmond Bernard, who unfortunately couldn't be with us today.

[00:05:59]Today's verdict brings a sense of justice and accountability for the incredibly horrific and tragic events of 48 years ago.

[00:06:07]The degrading and sometimes sadistic punishment and beatings kept out of view of my parents and other family and friends culminated in my younger sister Andrea's life being so cruelly taken away from my family.

[00:06:21]I would like to express our sincere thanks to the police, the prosecution team, and everyone involved for all their support in seeing this case through to its conclusion.

[00:06:30]Their care, commitment, and professionalism have been deeply appreciated.

[00:06:35]While no verdict can bring Andrea back or undo the impact and pain that this has had on myself and my family, I hope today's outcome sends a clear message that such actions have consequences and that victims should never be afraid to come forward, no matter how much time has passed.

[00:06:52]I am truly grateful for the support of my family, my friends, and all those who have stood by me throughout this process.

[00:06:59]I would like to acknowledge the huge courage it takes for victims and survivors to speak out and seek justice.

[00:07:05]At this time, I respectfully ask for privacy as I continue to focus on my healing and moving forward.

[00:07:10]>> We take for granted now CCTV, audio, mobile phones, all of the technology that generate documentary evidence. And also, um majority of the sort of the homicide cases that I deal with across London, it's people are caught at or near the time, and so the witness evidence is fresh in the memory. So, this was a wholly different challenge. And so, there are two main aspects to this. One is seeing what documentary evidence that was left and the coroner's hearing at the time was a one-day hearing and all that was left, the only documents that were left, no photographs, nothing like that, were the handwritten notes of that sort of um coroner's inquest, 16 pages long.

[00:08:01]And within those 16 pages, a number of key pages which gave us an indication of the level of burns, where they were, etc., from which the prosecution team and the police team had to reconstruct the injuries to Andrea at the time, where those burns occurred, how severe they were, and how they would equate to her being in the bath at that time.

[00:08:28]And what we found looking at that and looking at what Desmond had to say is that Janice Nixon's story simply didn't stack up. And so she was re-interviewed in 2022 and indeed started to change her account then about what had happened. So that was the start really of this particular case.

[00:08:49]It's not unusual in my experience for victims and witnesses to come forward as say 10, 20, 30, or even 40 years.

[00:08:57]This happens to be the oldest case that we can remember on CPS London Homicide Unit, but it's by no means the oldest case of its type in in the country. But 48 years, almost a quarter of a century ago, I said it's been taken quite a remarkable investigation and effort to bring this case successfully to trial as we have done.

[00:09:24]In this case, it's been very much joint working with the police. They've come to us at an early stage, asked for investigative advice, and we provided that and worked with the police up to the point they submitted a full file in January 2025 and we were able to give a charging decision a couple of weeks later because of the fact we worked very closely with them following those reasonable lines of inquiry which ultimately brought Janice Nicks to justice.