Mother jailed for killing her two sons

A mother, Kara Alexander, who murdered her two young sons in the bath while in a psychotic state, has been jailed for life.

Alexander was found guilty of drowning Elijah Thomas, 2, and Marley Thomas, 5, at the home they lived in Dagenham, east London, in December 2022.

The 47-year-old, who had denied two counts of murder, was convicted at Kingston Crown Court in February this year.

Post-mortems on the boys found they had either been drowned or suffocated.

Alexander accepted at trial that she had placed the boys in the bath before they “accidentally” drowned.

Returning to Kingston Crown Court on Friday, the judge, Justice Joel Bennathan, sentenced Alexander to life imprisonment with a minimum term of 21 years and 252 days.

The judge referred to the children’s father finding his deceased sons next to one another as “the stuff of nightmares.”

Bennathan said: “On the evening of 15 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 added, “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.”

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

He said: “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.”