Mum jailed for 12 years for killing daughter (From Prestwich and Whitefield Guide)

Mum jailed for 12 years for killing daughter

1:13pm Thursday 30th August 2012 in News By Gaynor Clarke, Reporter

A BURY mum who killed her four-year-old daughter has been given a 12-year prison sentence.

Dawn Makin wept in the dock as judge Anthony Russell QC delivered the outcome at Preston Crown Court today.

Makin stabbed her daughter Chloe in the neck and chest at their home in Lea Mount Drive, Fairfield, in February last year.

The 35-year-old cut her own wrists, took paracetamol and drank anti-freeze in a suicide attempt.

She also left letters for her family and friends.

Makin, who was discovered in a bedroom with her daughter at 7pm on February 17, is now permanently disabled, and appeared in the dock in a wheelchair.

At a previous court hearing in July, the prosecution had accepted her plea of guilty to manslaughter, on the grounds of diminished responsibility.

Judge Russell QC said: “I have to sentence you for this terrible crime. In doing so, it is necessary to weigh up the need to punish you for what you have done and reflect society’s horror at such a crime, but to reflect also the circumstances in which you were in, which reduces the crime from what would otherwise be murder and to take account of your present situation.”

Peter Wright QC, prosecuting, told the court today that psychiatric experts had found Makin had an “abnormality of mental function” at the time of the incident.

He said: “The abnormality arose from a recognised medical condition, that being a depressive disorder.

“Although able to recognise the nature of her conduct, she was no longer able to form a rational judgement and was of the belief that there was no alternative but to kill herself and her daughter.”

Mr Wright QC said the breakdown of her relationship with partner Martin Campbell had caused her to be very upset.

She had been dismissed from her job as a nurse practitioner at Moorgate Primary Care Centre in Bury and was being investigated after complaints were made to the Government’s Information Commissioner.

Defence counsel Nicholas Johnson QC said Makin had been described as a “great mum” and “model parent”.

But he said she felt she could not take her own life without killing Chloe, which he labelled as “extended suicide”.

He said: “Dawn Makin honestly believed that she had no alternative but to kill herself and her daughter.”