CPS statement following the conviction of Fiona Donnison

09/08/2011

CPS makes statement on successful conviction of child killer

Libby Clark, CPS South East District Crown Prosecutor, said: "The jury has accepted the Crown's case that Fiona Donnison was not the victim she portrayed herself to be but a calculating killer of her own children.

"Her defence was that she was a victim of domestic violence and that her life and that of her children Harry and Elise was so hopeless that the only way forward for her in order to protect them was to kill them and to take her own life. The jury was asked to accept that she was so depressed by her circumstances that her responsibility for their killing was substantially impaired.

"The court heard how on the day she killed her children the defendant drove down to Sussex with their bodies in holdalls in the boot of the car and drove to the former matrimonial home in possession of two knives.

"Harry and Elise were regarded as delightful, well mannered and affectionate children by all who came into contact with them. Their lives were ended in a sudden and brutal act of revenge by the defendant, their mother.

"We must not forget that two very young children have lost their lives; two other children must live with the fact that their mother killed their brother and sister and Paul Donnison is left to rebuild his life without his younger children."