Mum who drowned sons in bath after smoking cannabis jailed for life

A cannabis-smoking mother who drowned her young sons in the bath while in a psychotic state has been jailed for life. Kara Alexander, 47, of Dagenham, east London, murdered Elijah Thomas, two, and Marley Thomas, five, in the bath at their home in Cornwallis Road, on December 15 2022.

On Friday at Kingston Crown Court she was sentenced to life imprisonment with a minimum term of 21 years and 252 days. The judge, Mr Justice Bennathan, referred to the children’s father finding his deceased sons next to one another as “the stuff of nightmares”.

Sentencing Alexander, the judge said: “On the evening of the 15th of December 2022, you’d been smoking skunk. You’d been doing so every night for weeks, probably much longer. At some stage, both the boys were in their pyjamas ready for bed, with Elijah also wearing his nappy.You drowned them both by your deliberate acts.”

He said he could not reach any conclusion but that in her state at that time she intended to kill the boys, pointing out that she had “unspeakably” held the boys under water for “up to a minute or two”.

“The bath was probably still run from their normal evening routine and I do not think for a moment that your dreadful acts were pre-meditated,” he said. The judge said Alexander dried the boys, put them in clean pyjamas and laid them together, tucked in under duvets, on the same bunk bed.

“The next morning, their father, worried by your unusual silence, came and found them. The stuff of nightmares,” he said. The judge said there was every sign Alexander was a “caring and affectionate” mother to both children before the events of December 15.

He pointed out that their father said Alexander “never shouted or raised her voice at the boys” and “never showed violence to the boys”. Mr Justice Bennathan said Alexander was in a psychotic state when she killed her sons and that it was cannabis induced.

He said she had a previous psychotic episode in 2016 in which cannabis also probably played a part, but said he cannot be sure that she was aware that cannabis could trigger another psychotic state. The judge said he noted that in December 2022, Alexander spoke regularly with two members of her social circle about her heavy cannabis use, both of them knowing that she was looking after two small children.

“And at least one of them knew of your previous psychotic episode in 2016, yet neither of them warned you of any risk or sounded any note of caution at all,” he said.

Referring to aggravating factors in this case, Mr Justice Bennathan noted “the vulnerability of the boys by their young age and the shocking abuse of the trust that any small child ought to be able to have in their mother or father”.

The judge said Alexander will mourn her sons for the rest of her life. “From all that I have read and seen of you, I have no doubt that every day when you awake you will remember and grieve for the little boys whose lives you snatched away,” he said.

In his sentencing remarks, Mr Justice Bennathan warned of the dangers of drugs.

“The heavy use of skunk or other hyper-strong strains of cannabis can plunge people into a mental health crisis in which they may harm themselves or others. If any drug user does not know that, it’s about time they did.

“At your trial, Kara Alexander, the three psychiatrists who gave evidence disagreed about a number of things, but on that they were unanimous.

“It will comfort nobody connected to this case, but if these events bring home that message to even a few people, some slight good may come from what is otherwise an unmitigated tragedy.”