Woman arrested for 1978 manslaughter of 5 year old in one of London's 'oldest homicide cases'

Added: 2026-05-28

[00:00:00]Hi, Janice. Yeah. You don't know if you recognize me, DC Brand Homer.

[00:00:05]You're under arrest, okay, for the manslaughter of Andrea Bernard on the 13th of July, 1978.

[00:00:11]You're also under arrest for the assault and ill-treatment of Desmond Bernard between the 1st of October, 1975 and 1st of June, 1978.

[00:00:22]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 on in court. Anything you do say may be given in evidence. All right? Andrea was living with her brother, Desmond, and their biological father, Bernard, and Janice Nick.

[00:00:43]Janice Nick herself was a younger woman at the time, 19 years of age, and tragically, Andrea suffers from a scalding hot bath, 50% burns across her body, full thickness burns from being in a hot bath.

[00:01:03]And the question is how did that happen?

[00:01:07]Well, at that time, there was a coroner's inquest into that, and the coroner's inquest determined on the evidence available at the time that this was caused by an accident, albeit with some negligence from Janice Nick allowing her daughter, she said, or stepdaughter to bathe herself alone.

[00:01:27]But in 2022, Desmond, then living in America, decided to tell his story.

[00:01:36]A different story to the one he told at the time as a as a young man, but told the story that said, "Actually, Janice Nick has culpability for this."

[00:01:48]She not in my presence, but I heard this. I was in the house.

[00:01:54]She told my sister to get into that bath.

[00:01:58]And it was hot and she protested 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.