Stepmum ‘ignored five-year-old girl’s pleas before killing her in scalding bath’

Janice Nix denies manslaughter over the death of Andrea Bernard in 1978 (Picture: PA)

The brother of a five-year-old girl allegedly killed by her stepmother in a scalding bath tearfully told jurors he called her death an accident because he wanted the beatings to stop.

Janice Nix, 67, is charged with the manslaughter of Andrea Bernard by punishing her with a hot bath in Thornton Heath, south London, in 1978.

Andrea’s death was treated as an accident until her older brother Desmond Bernard went to police in 2022, Isleworth Crown Court heard.

Giving evidence on Thursday, Mr Bernard, now 56, said Nix regularly beat the children, even for not folding their clothes ‘to her standards’.

He described Nix as physically ‘strong’ with a ‘heavy-set build’.

M...