Antiguan Woman to Be Sentenced After Conviction in 1978 Child Death Case

An Antiguan woman convicted over the death of a five-year-old girl nearly 48 years ago in the United Kingdom is expected to be sentenced at a later date following a guilty verdict for manslaughter and child cruelty.

Janice Nix, 67, was found guilty at Isleworth Crown Court in London in connection with the death of Andrea Bernard, who died in July 1978 after suffering extensive burns from a scalding bath weeks earlier.

Nix was also convicted of cruelty to a child relating to Andrea’s older brother.

The decades-old case was revived after Andrea’s brother approached police in September 2022, urging investigators to revisit circumstances that had long been treated as an accident.

According to prosecutors, Andrea suffered severe burns on June 6, 1978, after allegedly being forced into dangerously hot water as punishment. The child sustained injuries to more than half of her body and later died from an infection linked to the burns.

Court proceedings heard that Andrea’s brother remembered his sister expressing fear about returning home from school after failing to obey instructions to stay home and clean. He later recalled hearing screams from upstairs and discovering Andrea unconscious with skin peeling from her legs.

Investigators reopened the case despite major challenges, including the destruction of medical records and the deaths of both the original pathologist and coroner involved in the 1978 inquiry.

The Crown Prosecution Service relied on surviving coroner’s records, witness statements and expert testimony to piece together the events surrounding the child’s death.

A fresh pathology review concluded that Andrea’s injuries were inconsistent with an accidental scalding and determined the water temperature would have caused severe burns within seconds.

Prosecutors also highlighted inconsistencies in Nix’s statements over the years. In her original account to the coroner in 1978, she reportedly claimed Andrea had gone upstairs alone to bathe while she was in the garden. However, decades later, she allegedly told police she heard Andrea screaming and found her struggling to escape the bath.

Nix was arrested at Heathrow Airport on February 18, 2025, shortly after arriving on a flight from Antigua, and was formally charged the same day.

Aisling Hosein of the Crown Prosecution Service described the matter as a deeply disturbing case and credited Andrea’s brother for helping bring the prosecution forward after so many years.

The court is expected to hand down sentence at a later hearing.