Wednesday, June 26, 2024 - A mum who suspected her husband of having an affair with another woman killed her two children because she didn’t want him to gain custody of them, a jury has been told.
Veronique John, aged 50, allegedly stabbed her son Ethan,
11, more than 20 times and inflicted brain damage on her 7 year-old daughter
Elizabeth before finding her husband Nathan at a car wash and stabbing him in
the stomach.
She then reportedly returned to her home in Stoke-on-Trent,
UK and called 999 and said ‘I am calling to report I just killed my two kids’
on June 11 of 2023.
A hearing is currently underway at Nottingham crown court
because John has been found to be ‘under a disability’ and ‘unable to
participate in the trial in any meaningful sense’, judge Mr Justice Choudhury
explained to the jury.
Veronique John, a charity shop worker, allegedly told police
when they arrived at her home: ‘If you have a gun shoot me. I am not a monster
– he was going to take them from me.’
She’s also accused of telling officers during an interview:
‘I didn’t want my husband to get them.
‘It’s something I was thinking about for a long time – just
kill myself and the kids. Unless you guys are offering me the death penalty I
have nothing else to say.
‘I did it because I love my children – to protect the
children. If there’s any possible way I could be put to death, I would like
that. I mean it 100%.’
Veronique John was born on the Caribbean island of St
Vincent and prosecutor Peter Grieves-Smith said she had searched online ‘Can a
foreigner be charged with murder in the UK?’ just hours before she killed her
children.
Grieves-Smith said her ‘rage was boiling just under the
surface’ a day after she had been arrested for assaulting her husband with a
piece of wood.
Veronique John didn't want him to have an internet-enabled phone according to reports and two days before the attacks, the jury was told John became angry and hit her husband with a wooden slat while their children were getting ready for bed.
Mr John made a complaint to police, who arrested John at her
home on June 10 and interviewed her under caution, opting to issue her with a
community resolution notice.
Shortly after 2pm on June 11, John went to the car wash
where her husband had stayed the night and stabbed him in the stomach, the
court heard.
Recounting what Mr John said in a subsequent 999 call,
Grieves-Smith said: ‘My wife just came to the car wash and stabbed me – she
said that she had just killed the kids.’
Grieves-Smith added: “What happened on the 11th of June
didn’t come out of the blue. Tension grew in the days before. That day she just
erupted, killed her children and attacked Nathan.’
Ethan was pronounced dead after being found in a bedroom
with a 17cm-long neck wound, while Elizabeth was discovered in the living room,
having suffered head trauma and ‘three areas of sharp force’ injury, including
to her stomach.
A few minutes before John walked to the car wash, the jury
was told a neighbour heard ‘high-pitched screaming and crying that lasted for a
little while’.
Veronique John, is charged with two counts of murder,
attempted murder and an alternative count of wounding, but has been ruled unfit
to plead as she is being treated at a secure hospital.
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