Woman tried to kill sons with lawnmower

13 April 2012

A mother today admitted trying to gas her three young sons to death.

The 32-year-old, who cannot be named for legal reasons, placed a petrol lawnmower in the back of her family car in a bid to kill her three sons, aged four, five and 10.

Her plan went wrong when she started up the mower and accidentally sliced off two fingers, allowing the boys to escape their fate.

The woman, from Denbigh, north Wales, had been involved in a bitter legal wrangle with the boys' estranged father. She had been threatened with jail shortly before the incident, which took place in May last year, for refusing to grant him access to the boys.

She pleaded guilty to three counts of attempted murder at Mold Crown Court today, and was remanded in custody until she is sentenced next month.

The case has chilling echoes of that of Keith Young, who killed himself and his four young sons by running a lawnmower in the back of his Mitsubishi Shogun 4x4 in March 2003.

Farm labourer Young, of Winsford, Cheshire, drove to a beauty spot near Llangollen, north Wales, to carry out his plan.

He telephoned the boys mother, 28-year-old Samantha Tolley, and made her listen as Joshua, Thomas, Callum and Daniel, aged seven, six, five and three, were overcome by the carbon monoxide fumes.

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