Drunk mum who passed out and suffocated baby avoids jail due to mental health issues
19.07.2022 - 21:05
/ dailyrecord.co.uk
A mum who drank so much she passed out and suffocated her baby - two years after she lost another baby in similar circumstances - has avoided jail in Switzerland after judges cited her mental health as a cause for concern. Claire Ross, 39, passed out drunk on top of her baby in July 2020, resulting in her oldest kid, then six, discovering a horrific scene.
However, today, Ross was cleared of negligent homicide after a trial before a tribunal of judges in the town of Nyon, Switzerland. The tribunal handed down its judgment this afternoon at the Criminal Court of La Côte, which concluded she was not criminally responsible for her actions and ordered her to undergo compulsory treatment.
President of the tribunal, Patricia Cornaz, declared that Ross’s personality disorders and “borderline traits” meant she had no control over her “binge drinking”, meaning she was “released from the sanction of negligent homicide”. Ross, from St Helens, moved to Switzerland with her husband, Ian Ross, and eldest child in 2018, report Liverpool Echo.
The first tragedy struck that year at their apartment in Prangins, after she gave birth to her second child. Ross had taken the two-month old girl to bed after drinking heavily and then passed out, awaking to find the baby had died.
An investigation was carried out by local prosecutors, but was dropped after an autopsy could not find a clear cause of death, leaving open the possibility the baby died of natural causes. However the family were not referred to the Swiss social services and, in 2020, Ross welcomed her third child, another girl.
But in July that year, tragedy struck again after Ross got heavily drunk one morning. The court heard she left six-year-old girl, in front of the TV before