Mum jailed for life after murdering toddler after ex asked to share custody
15 July 2022, 16:09
A mum has been jailed for life for killing her toddler by suffocating him with a plastic bag on the day his dad was applying to have more contact.
Daniel Green was just two when emergency services found him unresponsive at his home in Guisborough, North Yorkshire, on February 2.
Last month, his mother Carol Hodgson, 40, pleaded guilty to his murder at Teeside Crown Court.
At a sentencing hearing the court was told Hodgson had been due to attend the Family Court on the day of the murder after Daniel’s dad, Stefan Green, applied for joint custody.
Prosecutor Alistair Macdonald QC said when paramedics entered the address they found Hodgson’s mum performing CPR on her, they then noticed Daniel lying lifeless next to his mum.
Paramedics tried to save him but he later died in hospital. Hodgson regained consciousness but after opening her eyes, told paramedics "just let me die".
She was taken to hospital but remained silent on what had happened to her son, and later asked to be left alone and kept saying "please let me die".
When interviewed under caution, Hodgson denied killing her son saying she remembered taking tablets and wanting to kill herself but she did not want to harm Daniel.
Her mum found a note saying: "Just ring the police Mam, don’t go into the bedroom, you don’t need to see it. I love you and I am so sorry".
Hodgson was found with self-inflicted wounds to her neck and a bloody kitchen knife nearby.
Other notes were recovered in which she said that the only way for you to protect Daniel was to "take him with her".
Hodgson said she couldn’t remember anything after taking the tablets and said that her plan was to kill only herself but an investigation found she had suffocated Daniel with a plastic bag.
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In a heartbreaking victim impact sentence Mr Green, said his young son had been "his entire world."
He said: "I used to call him my little star. I miss hearing him laugh and holding him in my arms.
"The shocking nature of the loss has made everything worse.
"I now suffer with PTSD and night terrors. I haven’t been able to work and have been on the sick since it all happened.
"My mam and dad have been broken to the core. Even friends of the family have been hit hard.
"Some days I find myself thinking it may be easier if I wasn’t here any longer. I never got to see his first steps or hear his first words all of that was stolen from me.’
In mitigation, Richard Wright QC, said Hodgson accepted full responsibility for the murder of her son."There is no part of this mitigation that seeks to avoid that responsibility or shift it to anyone else.
"She loved Daniel deeply and her remorse could not be deeper or more genuinely held.
Sentencing, Judge Paul Watson QC, the Recorder of Middlesbrough, told Hodgson: "There is no doubt but that this was a premeditated killing which had been planned by you in advance.
"You deliberately killed Daniel and then made a determined attempt to kill yourself which was prevented by the arrival of your mother.
"The sentence, therefore, is imprisonment for life with a minimum term of 18 years and four months before you can be considered for parole.
"That term falls to be reduced by the 158 days you have served on remand. I also make any ancillary orders which I am required by law to make."
