Mother killed two baby sons

A mother who suffocated her two baby sons then claimed they were cot death victims was jailed for life for murder today.

Judge Heather Hallett hit out at the "classic kind of injustice" of mandatory sentencing that forced her to impose a life sentence on Angela Cannings.

Shop assistant Cannings, 38, slumped to her knees as the jury's verdicts were read out at Winchester Crown Court. She was convicted of killing seven- week- old Jason in June 1991 and fourmonth- old Matthew in November 1999 after a two month trial.

The jury was not told that she had also been charged with the murder of her first child, three- month- old Gemma, but the case had been thrown out, and that she had been questioned about another baby who cannot be identified for legal reasons.

Jason, Matthew and Gemma all died when Cannings was alone with them. Her family, including her husband Ter ry, have remained convinced she is innocent.

Sentencing Cannings, Mrs Justice Hallett said: "I have no doubt that for a woman like you to suffocate these babies there must have been something seriously wrong with you.

"All the evidence indicates you wanted these babies and cherished them. It's no coincidence, in my view, that you committed these acts in the weeks after their births.

"In my own view, you will never be a threat to anyone in the future."

Outside court Cannings' solicitor William Bache said she would be appealing against the conviction.

No one knows what drove Cannings to suffocate her sons eight years apart. The prosecution could suggest no motive and during her trial she maintained they were the victims of Sudden Infant Death Syndrome. The devout Catholic wept as she said: "I don't understand how, or why or what I have done to deserve all this sadness... to deserve to lose my children.

"Each time I felt empty inside and wondered why it has all happened." She told how she has been sterilised and bitterly regrets she can have no more children.

The support of her husband has been constant. Asked if he still loved his wife, he told the jury: " Absolutely". He said he never had the slightest concern over her care for their children at their home in the Wiltshire village of Winterbourne Gunner.

Over 10 years the family had been subjected to the closest medical scrutiny, because doctors were desperate to prevent further tragedy. Each child had apparently suffered grave breathing difficulties before being revived, although the incidents always seemed to happen when Mrs Cannings was alone with her baby.

The family were given breathing alarms and Mrs Cannings was trained in resuscitation. Although the jury decided that she had, in the words of prosecuting counsel Paul Dunkels, QC, acted "against nature and against instinct", no one has established why.

The three children who died
Murder charges shocked friends
Syndrome that confounds medics