Stepmum who killed daughter, five, in scalding hot bath found guilty nearly 50 years on

A drug dealer-turned-award-winning probation officer has been found guilty of killing her five-year-old stepdaughter by scalding her in a hot bath in 1978.

Janice Nix, now 67, punished Andrea Bernard by forcing her into the bath in Thornton Heath, south London, in 1978.

Andrea’s death was treated as an accident until her older brother Desmond Bernard went to police in 2022 to reveal a secret he had kept hidden for nearly 50 years, Isleworth Crown Court heard.

Police said it was thanks to Desmond’s courage that justice has finally been done for his little sister.

Mr Bernard, now 56, said he and his siblings ‘lived in constant fear’ of Nix’s punishment beatings, which have ‘left mental scars which I am still healing from’.

He sobbed in the witness box as he tod jurors during Nix’s trial how she would beat him with a belt, burned him with a cigarette, bit him and made him eat cat food.

On June 6, 1978, the court heard Nix was ‘furious’ after Andrea ignored instructions not to leave the house and to help clean instead.

Nix shouted at Andrea in an ‘extremely loud’ voice before beating her, jurors were told.

Mr Bernard said he later heard the bath running, adding: ‘I could hear Janice shouting “get in the bath” and I could hear Andrea saying, “the bath is too hot mummy”.

‘I could hear Janice shouting “get in the bath, get in the bath” and then I heard screaming and splashing.

‘Then I heard the screaming stopped and I could hear Janice calling Andrea to “wake up, wake up”.’

Asked by prosecutor Kerry Broome how Nix sounded, he replied: ‘She sounded scared.’

Mr Bernard said he walked into the bathroom and saw Nix cradling Andrea, who was ‘limp’ and wrapped in a towel.

‘I could see skin falling off her,’ he told jurors.

Asked whether Nix said anything, Mr Bernard said: ‘She asked me to say it was an accident… and to say that we were in the garden when it happened and that she would never beat me again.’

‘I lied, I told everyone that story,’ he said, adding when asked why: ‘I didn’t feel protected, I just wanted it to stop.’

Nix, of Clapham, south London, shook her head before weeping in the dock as she was convicted of manslaughter.

She was also convicted of cruelty to Mr Bernard between October 1975 and June 1978, when he was seven to nine-years-old.

Nix could be seen crying hysterically in the dock after jurors left the courtroom.

Mr Bernard said in a statement after the verdicts that his sister was ‘talkative, brave and very smart’.

He said that he had decided to come forward about his sister’s death to lift a burden ‘which was not mine to carry’.

In a written statement, he said: ‘When Andrea and I lived with Janice and dad, we were in constant fear when we were alone with her, because she wouldn’t abuse us in front of my father, mother, grandmother or any friends. So, we knew we were safe if someone else was present.

‘We were told that if we told anyone about the beatings and abuse, we would get it worse. She was very calculated in what she was doing to us.

‘It started with slapping with her hands, then belts and going on to burn me with a cigarette, hitting me with a metal pot, biting me, forcing me to eat cat food and making Andrea and I sit in a cold bath and stay in it despite shivering.

‘This treatment has left mental scars which I am still healing from.’

He said: ‘I am happy with the conviction, solely because she now must take responsibility for her actions, something she has to this day not done. Although this does not bring Andrea back or undo all the pain caused.

‘When I saw Janice in court, I saw a pathetic human being acting as if she is the victim.

‘A person who shows no remorse for the loss and pain inflicted on other people. She only seemed to be sad for herself.’

Andrea died nearly six weeks after arriving at hospital with burns to 50% of her body, the court heard.

A burns expert told the trial that a child exposed to water hot enough to cause Andrea’s injuries would instinctively try to get out by standing up, not remain seated.

Prosecutors argued this meant Nix must have forcibly held parts of Andrea’s body underwater.

Nix, then called Janice Thomas and in her late teenage years, had been in a relationship with the children’s father, also named Desmond Bernard, and was in effect their stepmother.

During the 1978 inquest investigation, Nix had initially claimed Andrea took a bath on her own and later complained of itchy legs before fainting.

But she admitted during her trial to giving a false account of the events to the coroner because she was ‘in a panic’ over having failed to supervise Andrea while she took a bath.

‘I realised I had done something I shouldn’t have done: I should have been with Andrea,’ she told jurors.

‘I was young and I was clearly not thinking. On hindsight now, I see my negligence as a teenager.’

Nix said she did not at the time realise the bathwater was scalding hot, adding: ‘All I know is that she was in distress, her legs were red, they had bubbles on them… I didn’t know how hot the water was.’

During a 2022 police interview, Nix gave a version of events that differed ‘significantly’ from her original statement from the time, having not been told that investigators had found it, the Met Police said.

She also claimed that the coroner found Andrea’s death was because of an overheated bath caused by a faulty boiler — something not mentioned in the report.

Nix was arrested at Heathrow Airport on February 18, 2025, after arriving on a flight from Antigua, and was charged later that day.

She had denied both the charges of manslaughter and cruelty to a child.

Detective Sergeant Danny Chatfield said in a statement outside court that Nix’s actions were ‘selfish and cowardly’ and that she had maintained a ‘web of lies’ for decades.

Detective Inspector Louise Caveen, from the Met’s cold case homicide team, said: ‘This is a particularly tragic case and my thoughts ultimately remain with Andrea’s family, whose lives were changed irrevocably back in 1978.

‘In particular, I want to pay tribute to Desmond, who bravely made the decision to come forward and speak to us, as well as giving evidence at trial.

‘It is thanks to his courage that Nix has now been found guilty and will finally be held responsible for her actions.’

Aisling Hosein of the Crown Prosecution Service said: ‘This was a harrowing case where Janice Nix subjected Andrea and her older brother to a sustained period of abuse, culminating in the tragic death of a five-year-old girl after she was forced into a scalding hot bath.

‘This prosecution only came about after Andrea’s brother reported his stepmother’s actions to police in September 2022, resulting in the circumstances into what happened on that day in 1978 being re-examined.

‘I can only imagine the enormous courage this must have taken to come forward after being told as a child to say the incident was just an accident.

‘It is thanks to him that we have been able to secure justice today on behalf of Andrea almost five decades on.’

Nix was remanded in custody to be sentenced at a later date.

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