Mother drowned three-year-old daughter in bath amid fears husband was having an affair, court told

Court hears Claire Colebourn told officers: ‘I drowned my own daughter, I drowned my own daughter’

Three-year-old Bethan Colebourn was found dead at her home in Fordingbridge, Hampshire, on 19 October 2017. Her mother Claire Colebourn is on trial at Winchester Crown Court (Hampshire Constabulary/PA)

A mother drowned her three-year-old daughter in a bath to “save her” from her father who she claimed was was having an affair, a court heard.

Claire Colebourn admitted to police officers that she held Bethan Colebourn “under the water surface”.

“She kept coming back to me, she put her hand on my cheeks, told me she loved me and said, ‘I do not want a bath, I do not want a bath’,” the 36-year-old said. “I waited for the bath to fill, I have never been so stressed in my life. I drowned my own daughter, I drowned my own daughter.”

The mother, who denies murder, told police she drowned her daughter because she “did not want her to go anywhere near” her husband, Michael, the chief executive of luxury marine-interior company Trimline, ​Winchester Crown Court heard.

Prosecuting, Kerry Maylin said Bethan’s parents, who had been together for 16 years and married for six, had separated just over a month before her death and Mr Colebourn had moved out of their home in Fordingbridge, Hampshire.

Ms Maylin said their relationship had been difficult and the defendant went on to make “unfounded accusations” on Facebook, and in an email sent to his work, that her husband was having an affair with the company’s finance director.

Ms Colebourn also became worried, without foundation, that her husband was monitoring her computer and arranged for an IT firm to supply her with a new laptop and wifi at her home, the prosecutor added.

She said that within minutes of receiving the new computer in October, she began searches for suicide-related websites and another website called “How to Kill by Drowning”.

She also watched a YouTube video titled “Someone Drowns in a Tub Nearly Every Day”.

Bethan was found by her grandmother Janet Fildew when she arrived for a visit at the family home on 19 October 2017.

The home in Fordingbridge, Hampshire (PA)

Ms Colebourn was also in the house and was said to be suffering a diabetic episode at the time.

Ms Maylin told the court that in a nine and a half hour-period that day, Ms Colebourn had administered a dosage of insulin 10 times the amount she would normally use in a whole day.

On the day before Bethan’s death, Ms Colebourn wrote a letter to her mother saying: “I love you, Bethan loves you, thanks for everything. Please make sure Walter [horse] and Charlie [dog] are looked after. Love always Claire.”

She added: “Please make sure I am buried with Bethan in Fordingbridge.”

Ms Maylin said that following her arrest, Ms Colebourn told medical staff she had tried to kill herself the previous day.

The prosecutor said a doctor described how she was “only emotional when discussing the fact Michael Colebourn had left her and her daughter and her father had done the same to her mother”.

In a letter intercepted at a hospital she was staying in, she wrote: “In my eyes I saved her, everything over those days is a blur.”

She later told police: “I am responsible for Bethan’s death because she drowned and I am responsible for it. Bethan drowned because I was there, I held her under the water.”

Ms Colebourn also made accusations that her husband had been “controlling and a bully”.

Ms Maylin said the last time Mr Colebourn saw his daughter alive was when he took her to a soft play centre on 15 October 2017.

She added: “He and Bethan had a nice afternoon and when he left she hugged and kissed her father goodbye.”

Ms Colebourn denies murder and the trial continues.