Stepmum who wrote self-help book found guilty of killing girl, five, in scalding bath water almost 50 years ago
Janice Nix shook her head before weeping in the dock as the guilty pleas were delivered at Isleworth Crown Court on Tuesday
A stepmother who once wrote a book to help women turn their lives around after prison has been convicted of killing a five-year-old girl who was forced into a bath of scalding water almost 50 years ago.
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Janice Nix, 67, had wrought a "cycle of violence" against children Andrea Bernard and her brother Desmond Bernard that went "beyond chastisement even by contemporary standards".
Nix was 19 when she is said to have forced the five-year-old into the hot bath in Thornton Heath, south London, in June 1978. She died in a specialist burns unit five weeks later.
Andrea’s death was treated as an accident until her older brother went to police in 2022 with a new account of what happened, Isleworth Crown Court heard.
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Mr Bernard, now 56, tearfully told jurors that he had initially described his sister’s death as an accident because he wanted Nix to stop beating him.
Nix, of Clapham, south London, shook her head before weeping in the dock as she was also convicted of cruelty to Mr Bernard between October 1975 and June 1978, when he was seven to nine-years-old.
Nix lived behind the dark secret for decades, in which time she even published a book titled 'Breaking Out', which was aimed at helping other women turn their lives around after being involved in crime.
In a 2021 interview with the iPaper, Nix, who served an eight year sentence for drug dealing, said: "If you want change bad enough then you have to open the difficult doors you have closed.
"I closed many doors in my life – to abuse, to belonging – and I feel I can empower women with my perspective and my journey."
She also said she wanted to "find alternatives" to sending women to prison who were convicted of shoplifting to feed their children.
But jurors sitting in the trial heard that Nix regularly beat the children, even for not folding their clothes "to her standards".
The court heard that on June 6 1978, Nix was "furious" after Andrea ignored instructions not to leave the house and to help clean instead.
Nix shouted at Andrea in an "extremely loud" voice before beating her, the court heard.
Giving evidence, Mr Bernard said he later heard the bath running. He went on: "I could hear Janice shouting 'get in the bath' and I could hear Andrea saying 'the bath is too hot mummy'.
"I could hear Janice shouting 'get in the bath, get in the bath' and then I heard screaming and splashing.
"Then I heard the screaming stopped and I could hear Janice calling Andrea to 'wake up, wake up'."
Mr Bernard said he then entered the bathroom and saw Nix cradling Andrea, who was "limp" and wrapped in a towel and added: "I could see skin falling off her."
He also told jurors he lived in "constant fear" of Nix’s beatings and did not tell anyone because he feared being "punished more".
Andrea died nearly six weeks after arriving at hospital with burns to 50% of her body, the court heard.
Nix, then called Janice Thomas and in her late teenage years, had been in a relationship with the children’s father, also named Desmond Bernard, and was in effect their stepmother, the court heard.
The defendant further told the court she did not at the time realise the bathwater was scalding hot, adding: "All I know is that she was in distress, her legs were red, they had bubbles on them.
"I didn’t know how hot the water was."
She will be sentenced at a later date.
