Article in The Guardian yesterday,
www.guardian.co.uk/uk_news/story/0,,1607106,00.html
gives some more details, and maybe a little more light. -- Bob
can't get the link to work, here's a paste:
Mother who killed son with Down's syndrome gets suspended sentence
· Judge tells of unbearable pressure that led to death
· Friends and neighbours welcome court's mercy
Sandra Laville
Thursday November 3, 2005
The Guardian
For years, Wendolyn Markcrow begged the authorities for help with her 36-year-old son Patrick, who had Down's syndrome. But for years little was done.
Struggling to cope with a 16-stone (100kg) adult, who regularly beat himself around the head, screamed like a toddler every night and sometimes lashed out at her, Mrs Markcrow reached the end of her tether.
On Easter Monday, after Patrick had spent the day shouting "Elton" as he repeatedly played one Elton John song, Mrs Markcrow gave him 14 sleeping pills and suffocated him with a plastic bag.
She then swallowed some pills herself, walked into the garden and cut herself with a kitchen knife in an attempt to take her own life. "I just snapped. I went crazy - I didn't know what I was doing," she told police.
At Oxford crown court yesterday a judge acknowledged the exceptional nature of her case and the "unbearable pressure" she had been under for more than 30 years. Sentencing Markcrow, who had pleaded guilty to manslaughter, to a suspended two-year jail term, Mr Justice Gross said it was the "merciful course".
"You will be punished as long as you live by the knowledge of what you have done and what you have lost," he said.
After letters in which Markcrow, of Long Crendon, Buckinghamshire, pleaded for help from her doctor and the local authority were read out, he said: "It's a feature of this case that there was a real need for assistance but an inability to provide it."
In court, Markcrow, 67, wept as her oldest son, Martin, described her devotion to Patrick as "saintly".
He said he had not been aware of how much she had been struggling as the sole carer. "My brother was literally beating himself to death. Reading the documents police recovered from social services was shocking," he said.
Friends and neighbours welcomed the mercy shown by the courts. "The responsibility of Patrick was almost exclusively hers," said Jeff Steadman, a Baptist minister. "It is only when you realise what people go through in the privacy of their own domain that you understand the enormity of what she has been through."
Patrick, one of four children, had "flourished" in early life, attending school and college in Aylesbury until he was in his 20s, the court heard. But he developed autism and started to hit himself in the face violently and persistently. In July 2003 his blows left him blind in the right eye.
He suffered chronic insomnia and would sleep for only two to three hours a night, waking up screaming and shouting. He also struck his mother and father, who struggled to control him.
In February 1996, Markcrow wrote to her GP asking for help. "Patrick has always had disturbed sleep," she said. "When he goes to bed most nights he has the tantrums of a three-year-old. I have threatened to kill him after these tantrums."
Four years ago he was enrolled in a respite care day centre but was excluded when he became too disruptive. He fared better within a social integration team, but had to leave when it was disbanded due to lack of funds.
By last year, when social services had not provided Mrs Markcrow with a care manager for Patrick, she wrote to them again. "The crisis is not going to go away. I really must have some support very soon," she said.
A Buckinghamshire county council internal email in May last year acknowledged her despair. "Mrs Markcrow contacted me desperate for some help. I am worried about how she is managing, especially considering the lack of help she is receiving. This is urgent," it read.
Ten months later, over the Easter weekend, Patrick was repeatedly hitting himself, refusing to sleep and constantly shouting, and his mother took him to the GP for an emergency appointment.
The judge said yesterday that what the doctor saw shocked him.
"Over the course of half an hour, Patrick punched his right eye absolutely as hard as he could around 20 times.
"The doctor said he had not seen anything like this before and he had no idea how the mother could cope with it."
A day later Mrs Markcrow could no longer cope and suffocated her son. A month later her husband, Paul, 70, died suddenly of natural causes.
Mike Colston, of Buckinghamshire county council's adult social care section, which has reviewed the case, said there were services on offer but Mrs Markcrow did not take them up.
"Mrs Markcrow's devotion to her son was absolute," he said. "Over time she accepted less and less help because he was very dependent on her."
