In 2008, Frances Inglis, 58 years old from Dagenham (East London), killed her brain-damaged 22-year-old son Tom.
Tom Inglis suffered severe head injuries when he fell out of a moving ambulance in July 2007. He tried to get out of the ambulance because he didn’t want to be taken to hospital after being involved in a minor pub fight.
Tom’s mother gave him a fatal heroin injection to end his ‘living hell’ and she was ordered to serve a minimum of nine years in January for attempted murder. Frances never denied that she gave her son deliberately a fatal overdose in the hospital bed. She lost her appeal against life sentence for murder but her sentence has been reduced to five years.
Inglis’s lawyers argue that the trial judge was wrong by not letting the jury decide whether her defence of provocation was valid. Her son was in constant pain and the only legal way to let hem die was to apply to the high court for an order to withhold food and nutrition. This would result in a slow and painful death and that was certainly not an option for Frances and her son.
Another mother, Kay Gilderale, helped her 31-year-old daughter to kill herself. Just a week after Inglis was sent to jail, Gilderale walked free from court with a 12-month conditional discharge. Frances’s husband and her two sons supported her the whole time and were present at the appeal court hearings.
It is difficult to decide whether or not Frances Inglis should go to jail or not. On one hand, it is certain that she deliberately murdered her son but on the other hand there was a "valid" reason. Her son was living in constant pain and as a mother, you want to do everything to make sure that your child lives in a ‘perfect fairytale’. It is not justified to apply for an order to withhold food and nutrition. A slow an painful death was the only legal way to let him die, but not the most ethical one. I certainly do not say that giving your son a fatal overdose of heroin is ethical!
I would give Frances a 12-month conditional discharge, just like Kay Gilderale.
http://www.guardian.co.uk/uk/2010/nov/12/mother-killed-disabled-son-appeal
Daphné V.E.
I have to agree with Daphné. Why does one mother get a sentence of 5 years and another only gets a 12-month conditional discharge. Both mothers did what they thought was best for their children. No one wants to see their own suffer and die painfully.
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