MANCHESTER MOTHER ADMITS MANSLAUGHTER OF TWO YOUNG BOYS IN CHEETHAM HILL
A GRIEVING father has described his shock and anger after his former partner admitting killing their two young boys.Marco Sewell said he had still not come to terms with the deaths of his children - Romario Mullings-Sewell, two, and his brother Delayno Mullings-Sewell, aged three months.
Their mother, Jael Mullings, 21, denied murder but admitted manslaughter on the grounds of diminished responsibility when she appeared at Manchester Crown Court.
She stabbed the children to death at their home on Kilmington Drive, Cheetham Hill, on November 12 last year.
She had been spotted screaming at her kids in the street hours before she killed them, telling them she 'hated' them and shouting: "are you going to kill me?" It is understood she had bathed them first before taking their lives, stabbing them through the heart.
Her manslaughter plea was accepted and Judge David Maddison warned she could expect a 'long hospital order' when she is sentenced on April 28.
After the hearing, the M.E.N.
spoke to the boys' distraught father at his Old Trafford home.
Pointing to pictures of his sons in his flat, he spoke for the first time about the moment he was told about the deaths.
Mr Sewell said: "The police came here and told me.
"It was a shock.
I still don't know what happened.
The more I think about it, the more I get cross and I want to do something about it.
It always makes me angry." He said he only learned from newspaper reports that Jael was on medication and had been treated for depression.
"I never knew anything about it," he added.
Hours before she killed her children, Mullings twice called her GP practice in distress asking for help.
A doctor went to her home but Mullings slammed the door in his face.
Police were called by staff at the GP practice but when officers visited the house there was no sign of life.
They went to look for her at shops in Cheetham Hill where a neighbour told them she had gone.
Detectives believe the children were probably already dead when officers first visited.
Mullings then called her mother and admitted she had killed her children.
Police eventually found the bodies when they returned to the home a second time.
Two separate enquiries are underway into the roles police, health professionals and social services played in the days and months before the tragedy.
The Independent Police Complaints Commission is investigating why police took an hour to visit the home after the second of two 999 calls from the GP surgery.
And a serious case review - not expected to be published until summer - is also underway into the roles of health officials and social services.
Mullings had been getting psychiatric help but the care she was receiving came to an end 18 months before the tragedy because she failed to keep appointments.
Social workers saw Mullings regularly over a period of five months after she dumped Romario at her GP surgery with a note attached to his clothing.
But the council stopped monitoring her earlier in 2008, when she was pregnant with Delayno, as they were happy she was getting the help she needed from her GP, health visitors and a childminder.
Pauline Newman, director of children's services at Manchester city council, said the deaths were 'a tragedy'.
She said: "Children's services has provided detailed information about its involvement with the family to the Manchester Safeguarding Children's Board as part of the independently authored serious case review being carried out by the board.
"My understanding from the independent chair of the board is that the investigation process is likely to be concluded in late summer, at which point an executive summary of the report will be published."
