Mother guilty of murdering her children to hurt their father

Fiona Donnison used son and daughter as ‘ultimate pawns’ by killing them to get revenge on her ex-boyfriend A woman has been found guilty of murdering her two young children and placing their bodies in holdalls in the boot of her car after the breakdown of her relationship with their father. Fiona Donnison, 45, used Harry, three, and Elise, two, as the “ultimate pawns” by killing them to hurt Paul Donnison in the most extreme way possible, Lewes crown court heard. She went into Heathfield police station in East Sussex on the morning of 27 January and told officers she had killed her children. The court was told she had smothered them with their bedding the night before. The defendant, who sat through much of the evidence with her head bowed, chose to stay in the cells as the jury returned its unanimous verdict. Paul Donnison, 48, looked strained and stared straight ahead as he sat in the public gallery flanked by his family. The four-week trial heard that Fiona Donnison, who was in a distressed state with superficial cuts to her wrists when she went to the police station, was not able to tell officers where the children were. A search of the area soon located them in the boot of her Nissan car, which was parked in Mill Close, Heathfield, around the corner from Meadowside, the former family home. Prosecutors believe the reason it was parked there and not on the driveway of the large detached house was because, after killing the children, she had planned to kill their father, with evidence suggesting she had laid in wait for him armed with two kitchen knives. However, jurors heard that Paul Donnison had been staying at the home of his new girlfriend, Alison Shimmens, that night. The defendant, a former City worker who was not married to the children’s father but had changed her name by deed poll without telling him, had suddenly moved out of Meadowside five months earlier. Jurors were told that, on 1 September 2009, the day after returning from a family holiday to Ireland, Paul Donnison came home from work to find the defendant had moved out, taking Harry and Elise and her two teenage sons from her first marriage with her. She did not tell him where she had gone but he later discovered she had moved into a house in Lightwater, Surrey, 100 yards from where his first wife lived with their own two teenage children, despite having no connections to the area. He and the defendant later reconciled and made plans to move in together again but the defendant remained jealous of Shimmens, a former schoolfriend Paul Donnison had started dating. Jurors heard that the couple, whose first child, Mia, died at nine months of suspected cot death in April 2004, ended their eight-year relationship on 14 January last year. Fiona Donnison went to court on 26 January to make an appeal for an occupancy order for Meadowside to force Paul Donnison to move out but was told it would not be immediate. She was also trying to stop him seeing the children, and made what was thought to be a false account to police of him assaulting her, and lying to the director of their nursery school that he was not allowed to pick them up. However, prosecutors believe she began to realise her attempts to make Paul Donnison’s life difficult were not succeeding, so she plotted to kill their children. On the evening of 26 January she drove to Heathfield, stopping at two supermarkets to buy sleeping tablets on the way, and parked the car in Mill Close with the children’s bodies inside. The court heard that, at about 10.45am the next day, Fiona Donnison went to the police station where she admitted killing her children. It was found that she had taken a large quantity of the tablets and was taken to Eastbourne district general hospital where police overheard her say: “Harry, where are you? There you are. Peekaboo, I’m going to kill you.” During her defence case it was claimed she was also not in her right mind at the time of the children’s deaths, and that the charges should be reduced to manslaughter. But prosecutors dismissed this, pointing to the level of planning involved in the killings and the fact that, after her arrival at the Dene mental health facility in West Sussex, she joined in activities and took out books from the library, which suggested she did not have a serious level of depression. The defendant also claimed she had amnesia and could not remember killing Harry and Elise. However, unlike other patients she appeared to have no problems finding her way around the new building. One clinical psychologist who gave evidence told jurors she believed Fiona Donnison to have been “100% likely to be feigning” psychological problems or symptoms. The defendant, who was described as a narcissist with an overdeveloped sense of self-importance and entitlement, declined to give evidence herself during the trial. Despite having a well-paid job in financial services, she often amassed thousands of pounds’ debt. She was made redundant in July 2009, which was said to have been a blow to her ego and could have contributed to events. Crime guardian.co.uk

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