Reid Steele: Hospital order for Bridgend mum who drowned son

A mother drowned her two-year-old son in the bath because she believed her family were possessed by demons.

Natalie Steele, 32, of Broadlands, Bridgend, admitted manslaughter by diminished responsibility.

Reid Steele died at University Hospital of Wales, Cardiff, on 12 August last year, a day after he was found injured in his bathroom.

Steele was detained under the Mental Health Act at Cardiff Crown Court and given an indefinite hospital order.

The court heard the "devoted" mother drowned Reid while suffering paranoid delusions about her family.

Steele told police she needed to protect him by sending him to heaven.

Sentencing, Judge Michael Fitton QC said: "It is a profound human tragedy that it was you, who loved him so dearly, that caused that loss of life.

"I accept that you did so when you were suffering from a severe and serious mental illness."

He told her the evidence heard showed she was suffering from a "period of depression so severe and so intense that it led you to a delusional and psychotic state".

"You were suffering from visual and auditory hallucinations and you were operating on the terrible mistake that your own family, who loved him as much as you, were out to harm him."

The judge thanked her family who were in court and told them nothing he had heard suggested anyone was at fault or could have foreseen what would happen.

"Not one of you present in the house could have carried any blame," he said.

"And if, in the small hours, you wake thinking about that, please remember you are in no way to blame."

Prosecutor Michael Jones QC previously said Steele's family described her as a "devoted mother" who was inseparable from her son "from day one" but they had been concerned when she reported hearing and seeing things.

She had told her mother, Amanda Prescott, she had been "seeing lights" and told her "demons are dark and real".

The night before Reid's death, the defendant had been on a camping trip with her church in New Quay, Ceredigion, but friends became concerned when she demanded to be immediately baptised.

Her friend, Heidi Acland, who was not on the trip, drove to New Quay early on the morning of 11 August to speak to Steele and persuade her to come home with her.

Ms Acland described Steele as "speaking gibberish" and telling her that she had to be a sacrifice.

On the journey home, Ms Acland noticed that Steele was compulsively checking on her son in his car seat in the back, saying "I love you Reid" and also kept taking her own seatbelt off.

Later that evening, after dropping Steele at the home she shared with her mother, step-father and brother, she received a text from her saying: "I've done something terrible, I had to protect Reid from my family."

When she arrived at the property, she found the emergency services were already there.

Ms Prescott told police her daughter had taken her grandson for his bath but had come downstairs at about 19:30 saying: "I think I done."

Her mother said Steele was not speaking in full sentences, just words like: "I done it."

She rushed upstairs to find Reid unconscious and wrapped in a towel on the bathroom floor.

An inquest into Reid's death was told he died from cardiac arrest.

Emergency services took him to hospital, where a CT scan was carried out, but he died the next day.

His cause of death was described at the inquest hearing in Pontypridd as "1a hypoxic-ischemic encephalopathy 1b cardiac arrest".

Steele later told police officers she had been playing "cups of tea" with Reid in the bath and had breast fed him before holding him under water.

The defendant said she was "really worried" about her family, saying they had "creepy eyes" and adding that she had "problems with spirits" and "spirits had been touching her".

A forensic psychiatrist's report later found Steele had been suffering from "an unrecognised, undiagnosed and untreated mental illness".

It continued: "[Steele] was so deluded that she drowned her son to protect him from demons and send him to heaven."

The report said that her culpability for the killing was low.

The prosecution accepted Steele's plea following reports from two psychiatrists into her mental health.

Following the sentencing, Reid's family said in a statement: "The pain we feel at Reid's loss can never be properly expressed with words.

"As a family, we unanimously agree that the judge's decision today was the right one. Natalie will continue to receive the treatment she needs, to hopefully, in time, get better.

"Mental health conditions can sometimes be frightening, complicated and most importantly, not always visible until it is too late.

"But there is help out there. Please don't be afraid to reach out."