Mother who killed her two young children in knife attack handed hospital order
A mother from Stoke-on-Trent who killed her young children in knife attacks described by a judge as “almost too horrific to comprehend” has been handed an indefinite hospital order.
A fact-finding trial in front of a jury at Nottingham Crown Court was told how Veronique John, of Flax Street, Stoke, Staffordshire, killed her children at their home in June 2023 before going on to attack her husband, Nathan.
Telling Veronique John that the order may mean she is never released from a secure hospital, High Court Judge Mr Justice Choudhury said the fatal attacks on her son Ethan, 11, and daughter Elizabeth, 7, had been "frenzied and heinous".
Elizabeth was pronounced dead at her home having suffered a fractured skull and knife wounds, while the 50-year-old’s son, Ethan, suffered more than 20 sharp force injuries.
John, who has been diagnosed with complex post-traumatic stress disorder as well as personality and depressive disorders, was ruled unfit to enter a plea or take part in the trial.
Passing the hospital order, Mr Justice Choudhury said the reason for the “abominable savagery” shown in killing the children appeared to be an attempt by John to “hurt” her husband because of fears he may take their children away.
The judge told John via a video-link to Rampton high security hospital: “The facts of this case are almost too horrific to comprehend.”
The wounds to John’s son were “almost as if” she was trying to decapitate him, the judge said.
“The injuries were no less horrifying in Elizabeth’s case,” the judge added.
The killing of the children appeared to have been an attempt to “hurt” their father and prevent him from taking them away, Mr Justice Choudhury told John.
John remained seated with her head bowed and wiped away tears as the judge continued: “You claim that you are not a monster… but your acts were either those of a monster or someone who has lost all capacity to reason.
“It’s clear that by the time of the trial you were not fit to plead. It has been conclusively determined that you did kill your own children and make an attempt to kill Nathan.”
A hospital order with a special restriction to protect the public was appropriate, the judge ruled, in light of the extreme and brutal violence used against two defenceless young children.
In a victim impact statement read to the court by prosecutor Peter Grives-Smith, Mr John, who was stabbed shortly after his children were attacked, said his wife had “viciously and brutally” taken their lives.
Mr John said: “On June the 11th my whole world was turned upside down. I lost the two most important and precious persons in my life at once.”
Ethan and Elizabeth had “instantaneously and undeservedly” lost their lives, Mr John said, adding that it was horrific that one of the siblings may have witnessed the other being “put to death in a beastly manner”.
In a trial of the facts, the prosecution sets our the case to the jury who decide if the defendant committed the offences - but the defendant is not part of the proceedings and verdicts cannot result in criminal convictions.
After hearing the evidence over five days, the jurors deliberated for around 40 minutes before unanimously ruling that John unlawfully inflicted fatal neck and head injuries on her children and stabbed her husband in the stomach.
John, who was not in court to hear the jury’s findings, now faces a mandatory hospital order admitting her to Nottinghamshire’s Rampton high security hospital.
Before the case was opened by the prosecution, trial judge Mr Justice Choudhury explained that the jurors’ task during the expected six-day trial would be to find whether she did the acts charged against her.
The judge said: “This trial is slightly unusual – the defendant has been found to be under a disability.
“She is unable to participate in the trial in any meaningful sense. Your task is to decide whether the defendant did the acts of unlawfully inflicting injuries on and killing Ethan and Elizabeth which led to their deaths, and unlawfully inflicting injuries to Mr John.”
Following the findings that John unlawfully killed her children and attempted to kill Mr John, the judge said the jury may have wondered why the trial was necessary given the “strong and overwhelming evidence”.
He made clear that the only disposal available in the “unusual” circumstances of the case is an indefinite hospital order.
During the trial the court was told John, originally from the Caribbean island of St Vincent, “erupted” into violence at her home in Flax Street, Stoke, because she did not want her husband, Nathan John, to have their children.
She then headed to a car wash where he worked to stab him in the stomach.
After returning home, John dialled 999 and told the operator: “I am calling to report I just killed my two kids.”
The charity shop worker told police after her arrest: “If you have a gun shoot me. I am not a monster – he was going to take them from me.”
John, said to be boiling with rage after being arrested for assaulting her husband while suspecting him of having an affair, later stated in interview: “It’s something I was thinking about for a long time – just kill myself and the kids. Unless you guys are offering me the death penalty I have nothing else to say.
“I did it because I love my children – to protect the children. If there’s any possible way I could be put to death, I would like that. When I say that I am not joking. I mean it 100%.”
She went on to claim that she could not remember anything about the nature or number of the injuries inflicted on the children.
Ethan was declared dead after being found in a bedroom, while Elizabeth was discovered in the living room, having suffered head trauma and “three areas of sharp force” injury, including to her stomach.
Medical efforts to save the children, who both had neck wounds, were “futile” due to the severity of their injuries, the court heard.
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