A five-year-old girl sobbed "The bath is too hot mummy" before she was held down and forced into a tub of scalding water in a house in Thornton Heath, south London. Andrea Bernard suffered burns across more than half of her body. She was pulled from the water limp, her skin already falling off. Five weeks later, she died in a specialist burns unit. Her death was recorded as an accident, and for nearly half a century, no one looked any closer.

Who Was Responsible for the Children

At the time, Janice Nix — then known as Janice Thomas and in her late teens — had primary responsibility for Andrea and her brother Desmond while their father worked long hours as a chauffeur. According to prosecutors, the arrangement gave Nix repeated, unsupervised access to both children, and she used it.

A pattern of abuse allegedly ran for years before the incident. Nix would wait until the children's father was away, then make the children go and retrieve one of his belts. She would double it over and beat them both on the arms and legs. She allegedly burned Desmond's hand with a cigarette and once bit his hand hard enough to draw blood when he ate chocolate from the fridge.

Just days before the scalding bath, both children were allegedly forced into a freezing cold bath as punishment, left shivering in the water. What followed days later would kill Andrea.

Nearly Fifty Years of Silence

Andrea's death was treated as a tragic accident in 1978. A boiler malfunction, the story went. The case was closed. Desmond, who was between seven and nine years old during the period of alleged abuse, carried what he knew in silence for decades.

What made him stay silent for so long comes down to a single moment prosecutors say happened right after Andrea was pulled from the water. Nix turned to Desmond and told him to say it was an accident. She promised she would never beat him again if he did. He told everyone it was an accident. She never hit him again. He was a child, and he kept that agreement for nearly fifty years.

It was Desmond Bernard who eventually broke the silence, approaching police and telling them his sister's death had become a burden he could no longer carry. The Metropolitan Police launched a formal investigation in September 2022.

The Charges and the Changing Story

When Nix was interviewed voluntarily by police, she told officers that Andrea died as a result of a tragic accident caused by a malfunctioning boiler which overheated the water. Prosecutors say this account was completely different from the version she had given the coroner in 1978 — a detail the court is expected to scrutinize closely.

Janice Nix, now 67 and living in Clapham, south west London, has been charged with the manslaughter of Andrea Bernard and with cruelty to Desmond Bernard during the years he lived under her care. She has pleaded not guilty to both charges. The trial is proceeding at a London court.