UK Mum kills her son

[bubbleburst]

Mother explains why she killed son with heroinFriday, January 15, 201016 hours 52 minutes agoBy ninemsn staffVIEWS: 0| FLOCKS: 0| 0 comments so far

Frances Inglis gave her son Tom a lethal heroin shot.

A mother who lethally injected her disabled 22 year-old son with heroin has told a UK court that she had "no choice" but to give her son the drugs.

Knowing that she would be charged with murder, and that what she did was against the law, did not stop Frances Inglis from going ahead with the plan.

Her son Tom was in a "living hell" after becoming disabled with serious head injuries when he fell out of a moving ambulance in July 2007.

The Times reports Mrs Inglis told the jury her son still had "emotions, although he couldn’t express them in words".

She said although an option available could have been to remove her son's feeding tube, she felt that to be too cruel. Instead she researched on the internet how to obtain heroin, and what dose would be likely to kill him.

She also frequented injecting rooms around London in a bid to find a seller of the drug.

"I believed it would have been Tom’s choice to have been allowed to die rather than have the intervention to keep him alive," she said.

"I felt he lost his life when he came out of the ambulance. I felt that I was helping, releasing him.

"I don’t see it as killing or murder. The definition of murder is to take someone’s life with malice in your heart.

"I did it with love in my heart, for Tom, so I don’t see it as murder.

"I knew what I was doing was against the law. I don’t know what name they would call it but I knew that the law would say it was wrong."

The court heard she waited until she had some time alone with her son in the nursing home and injected him with the drug in both thighs and this arms. She said he died peacefully, and in her arms.

She sobbed as she gave evidence: "I had no choice, I had no choice. I would have chosen anything else. I would have done anything else.

"It is not that I wanted to do it, I had to. I couldn’t leave my son there.

"It is not an easy decision to make or something that anybody would want to do. I had no choice."

Tom Inglis was living in a nursing home and receiving care for his significant brain injuries but his mother felt his opportunity for improvement was limited.

Evidence was tendered to the court which said otherwise: one treating doctor said he could forsee a time when Tom was able to care for himself or start his own business.

Friends told the court that although Mrs Inglis was "the pillar community" and of excellent character, her son's accident had changed her.

Mrs Inglis told the court she could think of nothing else but her son's pain and the "terror" she saw in his eyes.

The trial is continuing.

Do you agree or disagree with the choice the mother made? Give an explanation

[Symphony]

What a heart breaking decision to have made; and to have carried through; I think, while I admit it was illegal to do so, that it was an act of courage and strength for any loving mother to make;

of course, the thought springs to mind "did she truly do it with love? or did she want to be free of the burden of caring for him and move on with her life" but, one would hope it was a sincere selfless act.

As for agree or disagree? If I thought there was no hope, that I would be a vegetable for the rest of my life, then I woudl want to have smeone to do that for me; even though nobody would - would you really risk murder charges? Again, another sign of incrediable love, no? Similar to the end of Million Dollar Baby; it's that love that makes you do something for the good of someone else -

I see there's a quote from a doctor saying he could have seen the son caring for himself, having a business etc but I wonder, I do wonder if these thoughts / predictions were ever voiced to the mother... presumably if she thought such a full recovery was feasible, it wouldn't have seemed like this was the only way out.

Terrible story though, may he be at peace now, and may she .. move through the system with fairness & justice I guess.

[Pierced Musie]

I have more of a problem with the fact she was jailed while others who have done the same have been let free. If they are going to enforce the fact that is it illegal then it shouldn't be one rule for 1 person, and a different rule for another.

[devon]

^ True. She got a life sentence as well

[Pierced Musie]

Yet this week a mother who did the same thing to her daughter was set free. The differences between the cases was the fact that the girl could talk and was not paralysed. Is this fair?