Mother detained over children's deaths
Updated on 01 August 2007
A mother who suffers from paranoid schizophrenia has been detained indefinitely for the manslaughter of her two children.
Vivian Gamor, 29, of Pembury Close, Hackney, east London, was allowed unsupervised access despite the warnings of the children's father, Jimi Ogunkoya, who the youngsters lived with.
She bludgeoned ten-year-old son Antoine with a claw hammer and suffocated daughter Kenniece, three, with cling film in January.
Jonathan Rees, prosecuting, told the court that Gamor then dialled 999 and told the operator: "I kind of lost it, I snapped." She later told officers at the scene: "I don't care, they aren't mine."
Police found the bodies of her children lying in her bedroom, with a blood-stained hammer lying next to Kenniece and Antoine crouched in a defensive position between the cupboard and the wall.
Mr Ogunkoya blamed social services for their deaths after he was encouraged to let them stay with her, despite bizarre behaviour that had led to her being sectioned.
Gamor was subsequently released after doctors concluded she posed no risk to herself or others.
"I obeyed the law and let them go," he said. "I wish I had not done that," Mr Ogunkoya said in a victim statement read out at the Old Bailey.
The statement continued: "The system that I obeyed has frog marched my children to their deaths. They assessed her and found nothing wrong. This is pure negligence, which will not be tolerated."
Sentencing Gamor, Judge Peter Rook told her: "On the face of it, this terrible tragedy could have been avoided if you had not been allowed unsupervised access and the children's father's grave concerns had been given weight."
After Gamor killed her children, tests showed she had not taken her prescribed anti-psychotic drugs for ten days, the court heard.
Mr Ogunkoya said: "My heart hurts and the pain brings out the tears for the loss of my two little angels. It was horrible, a horrible nightmare that I still haven't woken up from."
Hackney Council has launched an independent inquiry following the deaths and a report will be published next month.
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