There is no doubt but that this was a premeditated killing which had been planned by you in advance.’ – Sentencing judge

Mother handed life sentence for suffocating toddler son, 2, after ex asked for joint custody

Daniel Green was just two when emergency services rushed to his home in North Yorkshire, on February 2, and found him unresponsive

His mother Carol Hodgson, 40, pled guilty to Daniel’s murder at Teesside Crown Court in June.

Hodgson had been due to attend the Family Court on the day of the murder after Daniel’s dad, Stefan Green, applied for joint custody

She will serve a minimum of 18-years and four months in prison, before consideration of parole

A UK mother who suffocated her two-year-old son with a plastic bag on because his father wanted shared has been sentenced to life in prison.
Daniel Green was just two when responding EMTs found him unresponsive at his home in Guisborough, Yorkshire on February 2.
Last month Carol Hodgson, 40, of the same address pled guilty to Daniel’s murder at Teesside Crown Court. Hodgson’s killing was said to be ‘pre-meditated.’
At a sentencing hearing on Friday the court heard Hodgson had been due to attend the Family Court on the day of the murder after Daniel’s dad, Stefan Green, applied for joint custody.
Prosecutor Alistair Macdonald told the court that paramedics on arrival met child’s grandmother performing CPR on her daughter. The first responders then noticed the toddler lying lifeless next to his mum. Paramedics transported the two-year-old to hospital where he later died.
Hodgson regained consciousness at the scene, but after opening her eyes, told paramedics: ‘just let me die’. Transported to hospital but remained silent on what had happened to her son, and later asked to be left alone. She kept saying ‘please let me die’.
When interviewed under caution, Hodgson denied killing her son. She told police that she remembered taking tablets and wanting to kill herself, but did not want to harm Daniel.

Hodgson was found with self-inflicted wounds to her neck and a bloody kitchen knife nearby. Her also mother found a note saying: ‘Just ring the police Mam, don’t go into the bedroom, you don’t need to see it. I love you and I am so sorry’.
Despite more notes being recovered in which she stated that the only way for you to protect her son was to ‘take him with her’, Hodgson maintained that she couldn’t remember anything after taking the tablets and said that her plan was to kill only herself.
However, an investigation uncovered that she had suffocated Daniel with a plastic bag.
In a moving victim impact sentence the boy’s father said his young son had been ‘his entire world’.
‘He was my entire world,’ Green said.
‘I used to call him my little star. I miss hearing him laugh and holding him in my arms.
‘The shocking nature of the loss has made everything worse.
‘I now suffer with PTSD and night terrors. I haven’t been able to work and have been on the sick since it all happened.
‘I never got to see his first steps or hear his first words all of that was stolen from me.’
In mitigation, Hodgson’s defense counsel, Richard Wright, said his client accepted full responsibility for the murder of her son. ‘There is no part of this mitigation that seeks to avoid that responsibility or shift it to anyone else.
‘She loved Daniel deeply and her remorse could not be deeper or more genuinely held.’
Unimpressed by the defense prayer for leniency, Judge Paul Watson at sentencing told the defendant: ‘There is no doubt but that this was a premeditated killing which had been planned by you in advance.
‘You deliberately killed Daniel and then made a determined attempt to kill yourself which was prevented by the arrival of your mother.
‘The sentence, therefore, is imprisonment for life with a minimum term of 18 years and four months before you can be considered for parole.