Mother released from care to kill her children

Mother released from care to kill her children
By staff and agencies
Last Updated: 2:15am BST 02/08/2007


http://www.telegraph.co.uk/news/main.jhtml;jsessionid=TFH0VBQX5YTUDQFIQMFCFF4AVCBQYIV0?xml=/news/2007/08/02/nsocial102.xml

A mother with a severe mental illness killed her two children after being allowed unsupervised access despite the warnings of their father, a court heard yesterday.

Vivian Gamor, 29, was detained indefinitely after admitting two counts of manslaughter at the Old Bailey.

The children's father, Jimi Ogunkoya, blamed social services for their deaths after he was encouraged to let them stay with her despite bizarre behaviour that had led to her being sectioned.

advertisement"I obeyed the law and let them go," he said in a victim impact statement read out in court. "I wish I had not done that.

"The system that I obeyed has frog-marched my children to their deaths.

"They assessed her and found nothing wrong. This is pure negligence, which will not be tolerated."

Sentencing Gamor, Judge Peter Rook told her: "On the face of it, this terrible tragedy could have been avoided if you had not been allowed unsupervised access and the children's father's grave concerns had been given weight."

Gamor, from Hackney, east London, bludgeoned 10-year-old son Antoine with a claw hammer and suffocated daughter Kenniece, three, with cling film in January.

Jonathan Rees, prosecuting, told the court that she then dialled 999 and told the operator: "I kind of lost it, I snapped." When police arrived they found the bodies of her children lying in her bedroom, with a blood-stained hammer lying next to Kenniece, and Antoine crouched in a defensive position between the cupboard and the wall.

Gamor told officers: "I don't care, they aren't mine."

She had been previously been sectioned after claiming the children were not hers, that she was the son of God and Jesus was her twin. But Gamor was later released from care after doctors concluded she posed no risk to herself or others.

She was later allowed limited, supervised contact with her children but their father was worried about the prospect of unsupervised overnight stays.

However, his attempts to stop her seeing the children were rebuffed and he was told he would not be allowed to come between them and their mother.

When he voiced concerns about the overnight stays to a social worker, she told him: "She is their mother." After Gamor killed her children, tests showed she had not taken her prescribed anti-psychotic drugs for 10 days.

Mr Ogunkoya said: "My heart hurts and the pain brings out the tears for the loss of my two little angels. It was horrible, a horrible nightmare that I still haven't woken up from."

Gamor, who has been diagnosed as suffering from schizoaffective disorder, stared blankly ahead as the details of her children's deaths were read out in court, while relatives sobbed in the public gallery.

Hackney council has launched an independent inquiry following the deaths and a report will be published next month.

Mr Ogunkoya, who was separated from Gamor, felt that he "didn't have a leg to stand on" in trying to take the children away from her, Mr Rees said.

He said all the professional bodies he had contacted told him he "could not stand in the way of the children's mother".

One day when Mr Ogunkoya had picked the children up from a visit in 2005, he found that she had shaved the hair off the side of their daughter's head.

The following year she said she no longer wanted to see them, believing her own children had in fact been stillborn and that Antoine and Kenniece had been swapped with them at birth.

She was sectioned in September 2006 after lunging at her half-sister with a knife, but discharged a month later. Diane Ellis QC, for Gamor, told the court: "There have undoubtedly been failures among the professionals caring for her."

The judge said: "This was a truly appalling tragedy and has led to unimaginable suffering for the children's father and grandparents."

After the hearing, Fran Pearson, chairman of the City and Hackney Safeguarding Children Board, said the board had launched an inquiry to "look thoroughly at the involvement of all public agencies with this case".

She said: "Mental illness is often unpredictable, but if there are any lessons from this which will help us to protect children better in the future, then they will be learnt, and any necessary action implemented."

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