Retired probation officer Janice Nix, 67, sentenced to 12 years for 1978 manslaughter of stepdaughter

Janice Nix, 67, was sentenced to 12 years in prison at Isleworth Crown Court on 19 June 2026 for the manslaughter of her stepdaughter Andrea Bernard. The court found that Nix placed the five-year-old in a scalding bath in Thornton Heath, south London, in 1978.

Mr Justice Nicholas Lavender told Nix during sentencing: “I’m sure that you ran the bath, you knew how hot it was, you told Andrea to get in the bath, she said it was too hot, but you either put her in the bath or made her get into it.

Nix cried through most of the hearing and wept loudly while the judge delivered these remarks. Nix was also convicted of cruelty toward Andrea’s older brother, Desmond Bernard, between October 1975 and June 1978, when he was between seven and nine years old. Desmond Bernard contacted police in 2022 with a new account of events that had initially been treated as an accident.

In a victim impact statement, Desmond Bernard said the abuse included beatings with a belt and being forced to eat cat food. ” Nix is a retired probation officer. GB News reported the sentencing details from Isleworth Crown Court.