‘I had to, don’t you see? He was threatening to go to the police. I couldn’t let him do that. Jessica’s our daughter. I had to protect her. David kept threatening to go to the police.’ She was crying now, stammering out the words between her sobs. ‘Poor Jessica. She was terrified that vicious brute was going to turn on the baby. She did what any mother would have done, and killed that man to protect her baby.’

‘So now you’re telling us Jessica killed her husband?’ Ian said.

‘And that’s what any mother would have done?’ Geraldine repeated softly.

‘Exactly. You understand, don’t you?’ Anne turned to Geraldine in a desperate appeal. ‘Jessica never admitted that fiend was abusing her, but I could tell. A mother always can. One punch from that vicious brute’s fist would have crushed little Daisy’s skull. Jessica had to stop him. He got what he deserved. You have to understand now why we can’t let Jessica go to prison for what she did. That can’t happen, not to my daughter.’

‘So you killed David to silence him about your daughter having murdered her husband,’ Geraldine said slowly. ‘Instead of leaving Jason, reporting him to the police, taking out an injunction against him, having him stand trial for what he had done to her, she decided to take the law into her own hands by murdering him.’

Anne was silent.

‘You admit you were aware that your daughter had committed murder?’ Ian said.

‘No, no, it wasn’t like that,’ Anne replied. ‘You make it sound so much worse than it actually was. You have to understand that Jessica was provoked beyond endurance. That’s mitigating circumstances, isn’t it? They can’t call it murder, can they?’

Her lawyer confirmed that Jessica could plead diminished responsibility on the grounds of sustained physical abuse.

‘Yes, that’s exactly what it was,’ Anne replied. ‘Only David didn’t seem to understand. All he could say was that we couldn’t ignore the fact that Jessica had killed her husband. I begged him to keep quiet about it. Who was it going to harm? But he just looked grim and said he would have to think about it, before he decided what to do. “We’re talking about murder” he kept saying, over and over. He said she needed professional help, and then he said he might go to the police, he hadn’t made up his mind yet. I couldn’t take that risk, not with Jessica’s freedom. She has a baby to care for.’

‘And so you killed him,’ Geraldine said.

‘Yes, yes, yes!’ Anne cried out wildly, speaking in staccato bursts between sobs. ‘That was me. I had no choice. He wouldn’t listen to reason. She’s my daughter. He was going to betray her. He wanted to tell the police – I couldn’t let him –’