Hospital for woman who killed son

Stewart was unable to cope with life after the birth of her son

A 33-year-old mother who killed her toddler son by drowning him on a west Wales beach, has been committed to a psychiatric hospital indefinitely.

On Friday, Mirlene Stewart from Washwood Heath in Birmingham, admitted manslaughter at Swansea Crown Court.

The body of her son Jordan was found floating in a rock pool at Coppet Hall beach, near the popular Pembrokeshire resort of Saundersfoot, in July last year - less than a week before his second birthday.

The court was told that Stewart had appealed for help from Birmingham Social Services but two months before the tragedy was told her file was to be closed.

The court heard that she had been unable to cope with life after the birth of her son.

In fact, she told Birmingham Social Services she would kill herself and her son unless she was helped.

For a month she was placed under their care, but on 26 May she was told her file would be closed.

A couple walking on the beach found Jordon's fully-clothed body

Further treatment as an outpatient at Birmingham hospital ended in July just days before she travelled to Saundersfoot by train.

Once there she walked out to Coppet Point and threw herself and her son into the sea.

The fully-clothed body of her son was found laying on rocks by a couple walking on the beach on 23 July.

A child's buggy was found nearby.

The picturesque sandy stretch of beach - visited by thousands of tourists every year - was immediately sealed off.

Stewart was arrested soon after.

She later told the police she wanted both of them to die.

A consultant psychiatrist told the court she had been suffering from severe depression and psychosis and had been having delusions and hallucinations that poisons were being put in her food and that she was seeing ghosts.

Mr Justice Pitychford making an order under the mental health act committed her to the car of a psychiatrist at Stockton Hall Psychiatric Hospital in York.

A spokesman for Birmingham Social Services said an inquiry had been completed into Jordan Reid's death and an action plan drawn up for consideration by the child protection committee.