Emma Barnett put a premeditated plan into motion to kill her son Oakley and herself
A mum murdered her toddler by putting poisoned milk in his baby bottles. Emma Barnett poisoned her one year-old Oakley to prevent social services from taking him into care.
The 36-year-old, of Debden in Essex, was jailed for life on Friday, June 5 at Cambridge Crown Court. As the MEN reports, the court heard that five of Barnett’s children had already been removed from her care due to her inability to look after them. Then, on November 8, 2024, a family court hearing was scheduled to order Oakley’s removal from Barnett’s custody.
Prosecutor Christopher Paxton KC stated that Barnett had known for weeks that losing custody of Oakley was “inevitable”. Instead of cooperating, Barnett rejected offers of help and put a premeditated plan into motion to kill her son and herself.
Mr Justice Derek Sweeting, sentencing, detailed the calculated steps Barnett took before the remote court hearing began. On the day of the hearing, Barnett collected prescriptions for the antidepressant mirtazapine and the sedative antihistamine promethazine – medications she later admitted she was not actually taking.
She drove her car to Epping Forest and left it there to give the impression she was missing in the woods, before walking back to her house.
Barnett joined the family court hearing remotely via phone but intentionally kept her camera off. She retreated to her home’s loft, which she had pre-stocked with supplies, and mixed the lethal doses of medication into milk and juice inside Oakley’s baby bottles and a syringe.
As the evening progressed, police and social workers launched a massive search for Barnett and the toddler, deploying a helicopter and police K9 units to search Epping Forest where her car had been abandoned.
Shortly before midnight, officers searching her home address heard the sound of a baby crying coming from the loft.
An officer attempted to negotiate with Barnett to coax her down. However, at 12.16am on November 9, the situation escalated when Barnett told an officer: “I killed him.”
Police immediately forced entry into the loft cavity. They found Oakley unresponsive and Barnett suffering from self-inflicted injuries. Despite medical intervention, Oakley survived for several weeks before succumbing to the poisoning in hospital on December 31.
Barnett had denied charges of murder, but was convicted by a jury following a trial. She showed no emotion as the life sentence was handed down.
Barnett was ordered to serve a minimum of 22 years in prison at Cambridge Crown Court. Justice Sweeting acknowledged that Barnett suffered from a recognised personality disorder, and stated he was certain she had planned her own death in advance.
However, he concluded that her decision to kill her son was driven by malice, stating: “I consider it at least possible it wasn’t until November 8 you came to the view if you could not have Oakley, no one else could have him.
“This was the killing of a very young and vulnerable child wholly dependent on you brought about by your deliberate actions.”
In mitigation, Jonathan Higgs KC noted that Barnett was of previous good character and that her previous children had been removed solely because she was unable to care for them.
In a victim impact statement read aloud by the prosecutor, Oakley’s father, Jake Rose, expressed his profound grief.
“I’m never going to see my little boy grow up,” Rose said. “My life and heart is now always going to be filled with a massive void of never getting to know my precious boy.”
