http://www.dailytelegraph.news.com.au/common/story_page/0,5936,5307898%255E3163,00.html
Mother who poisoned sons is freed
By NATALIE WILLIAMS
18oct02
A YOUNG mother who poisoned her two sons with the intention of later killing them and herself by gassing or fire walked free from the District Court yesterday.
The 25-year-old fed her five-year-old son and seven-month-old baby a cocktail of Panadol and Panadeine Forte mixed in melted chocolate.
She left suicide notes in a suitcase saying she wanted to take her children to a "better place". But she could not go through with her plans, instead calling the triple-0 emergency number for help.
The woman had been involved in a custody battle with the father of her first child.
After her arrest, she told a psychiatrist "life was intolerable" and she had "nothing to look forward to" and believed her children would not be looked after without her.
She imagined she would be "going to Paradise", in keeping with her upbringing as a Jehovah's Witness.
Yesterday Judge Ralph Coolahan, in Newcastle District Court, detailed psychiatric reports which concluded the woman suffered post natal depression and a major depressive episode leading up to the offences, in November last year.
She pleaded guilty to two counts that she unlawfully administered overpowering drugs with intent to murder her two children.
While both children were found to have suffered overdoses, the amounts were notlethal and they survived. In sentencing the Hunter Valley woman, Judge Coolahan said "it is obvious she had a great deal of love" for her children.
He said it was "of vital importance" to understand that the prosecution did not rely on the act of the poisoning but on the admission by the woman of her intention to sedate the children and cause their death later by gassing, by fire or both.
"But, before she reached that stage she reneged and obtained help," Judge Coolahan said.
"A rational person looking at this matter would have to conclude she did what she did in a situation where her mind was gravely disturbed.
"The community would not expect that this offender should be punished by way of a full-time custodial sentence, bearing in mind the psychiatric evidence.
"Her state of mind was so disturbed as to deprive her from thinking clearly and rationally about what she was doing. Fortunately the condition is treatable."
Judge Coolahan sentenced the woman to two years imprisonment on each count, but suspended the sentences on condition she enter a bond under the supervision of the Probation and Parole Service.
An Apprehended Domestic Violence Order, protecting the two children, had already been ordered for five years.
The children's care by relatives is being monitored by the Department of Community Services.