A woman who drowned her toddler twins in the bath out of anger at her estranged husband has been jailed for 10 years.
Samantha Ford killed her children Jake and Chloe on Boxing Day last year, a few months after her split from their father, Steven Ford. She then drove her Ford Galaxy at about 100mph into the back of a lorry while not wearing a seatbelt, in the early hours of 27 December.
When police managed to open the doors of her vehicle, she told them: “I’ve killed my babies. Please let me die. I put them in the bath. We were meant to be together. I was going to jump off a cliff but it’s too dark.”
Police found the 23-month-old children dead in their bedroom at her home in Margate, Kent. Ford denied murder but admitted two counts of manslaughter on the grounds of diminished responsibility at a hearing in May.
Mr Justice Edis sentenced Ford to 10 years, to be served in a psychiatric unit until she is well enough to be transferred to prison.
He told the defendant: “The horror of what happened does not need any explanation by me. Anyone with any imagination can envisage for themselves what must have happened in that bathroom. It is unlikely that they died simultaneously and it must have taken some time and required some determination.
“Your anger with your husband was a significant contributory factor. In deciding to kill your children and yourself, I am sure that you had thoughts of the effect this would have on Steven Ford, with whom all the psychiatrists say you were preoccupied. You knew it would devastate him and I’m sure that is a reason why you did it.”
Earlier, the prosecutor Tom Kark QC said the couple had lived in Qatar for the first 10 years of their marriage, and their relationship deteriorated after they left their affluent lifestyle and moved to Charing in Kent in 2018.
Before their split, Ford told her husband: “You have ripped my world apart, now we are nothing but a miserable, broken family growing up in a shithole.”
Relatives said Ford’s mental health declined rapidly after the separation and she sent multiple text messages to her estranged husband trying to persuade him to return to her, the court heard. Ford, who was said to have been “controlling and aggressive” towards her husband in the past, pleaded with him, saying: “I’m not a monster.”
She and the children moved to Margate while Steven Ford remained in Charing.
Brenda Campbell QC, defending, said there were 76 communications between Samantha Ford and mental health services in the weeks before the killings.
By Christmas Ford’s family decided that her mental health was so poor that the children’s father should take them and bring them back on Boxing Day, the court heard. Ford drowned them later that evening after her parents had left the house.
Dr Philip Joseph, a psychiatrist, told the court Ford had feelings of anger and betrayal towards her estranged husband and wanted revenge when she killed their children. He found her mental function was impaired because of moderate depressive illness.
He cast doubt on her later claim that she heard voices, but said she may have had thoughts in her head “telling her the only way forward is to kill the children”.
But Prof Gillian Mezey said Ford would never have harmed her children if it were not for her illness. She disagreed that Ford had acted out of “anger or aggressive outbursts”.
Mezey said: “She was a good, caring, loving, attentive mother by every account and her marriage to Steven Ford was also a rather successful one.”
She said Ford had told her of just one incident when she had hit her husband, many years ago.
In a victim impact statement read out at an earlier hearing, Steven Ford said he thought their children would have been “terrified, confused and that they suffered” in death.
He said: “This was the most heinous, spiteful act on two innocent children. I have no doubt [Ford] did this with the intention of taking her own life and punishing me in the process.” Mitigating, Campbell said Ford was a bright and capable woman who had been destroyed by her actions.
In a letter to the court Ford wrote that the loss of her children was indescribable, and that it had hurt her physically and mentally.