Boy hid sister's death to 'stop abuse', jury hears

The brother of a five-year-old girl allegedly killed by their father's girlfriend in a scalding bath in 1978 tearfully told jurors he called her death an accident because he wanted the beatings to stop.

Janice Nix, 67, is accused of manslaughter by putting Andrea Bernard in a hot bath as a form of punishment when they lived in Thornton Heath, south London.

Andrea's death was treated as an accident until her older brother Desmond Bernard went to police in 2022, Isleworth Crown Court heard.

Giving evidence, Bernard, now 56, said Nix regularly beat the children, even for not folding their clothes "to her standards". Nix denies all the charges against her.

• Warning: distressing details are included in this article

He described Nix as physically "strong" with a "heavy-set build".

Bernard alleged Nix beat him with a belt, burned him with a cigarette, bit him, and made him eat cat food, all while he was seven to nine years old.

Jurors heard that on 6 June 1978, Nix was "furious" after Andrea ignored instructions not to leave the house and to help clean instead.

When they arrived home, Nix shouted at Andrea in an "extremely loud" voice before beating her, the court heard.

Bernard said he later heard the bath running.

He went on: "I could hear Janice shouting 'get in the bath' and I could hear Andrea saying 'the bath is too hot mummy'.

The court heard how screams could be heard for a while, and then they stopped.

Bernard said he could then hear Janice calling Andrea to "wake up, wake up".

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

Bernard said he then entered the bathroom and saw Nix cradling Andrea, who was "limp" and wrapped in a towel.

He added: "I could see skin falling off her."

Asked whether Nix said anything, Bernard replied: "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."

Asked what he did, he said: "I lied, I told everyone that story."

Asked why, Bernard replied: "Because I didn't feel protected, I just wanted it to stop."

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, the court heard at the opening of the trial.

Nix, of Clapham, south London, denies manslaughter and cruelty to Desmond Bernard (junior) between October 1975 and June 1978.

The trial continues.

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