UK case mirrors that of Robert Latimer

It's time for Robert Latimer to be released from prison. Latimer killed his teenage daughter Tracy who was born with severe cerebra palsy.

The desperate plight of a loving mother who killed her Down's syndrome son after caring for him for 36 years led a judge to spare her a jail sentence yesterday.

Wendolyn Markcrow, 67, described as having lived a "saintly" life, finally reached her wits' end, a court heard.

During another sleepless night she "snapped" and gave her son Patrick 14 tranquillisers and suffocated him with a plastic bag.

She then slashed her neck and arm with a kitchen knife and sat down in her garden shed where she hoped to die.

She was "overwhelmed with despair" and wanted to end her life. Yet she feared for what would happen to Patrick if she were not there, knowing that her husband could not cope and feeling that the authorities had not given the support she needed.

Oxford Crown Court heard that she had never thought to put her own needs before those of her son and, in the end, "spiralled into depression".

Markcrow, a mother of four, from Long Crendon, Bucks, who admitted manslaughter on the grounds of diminished responsibility at an earlier hearing, survived her suicide attempt.

She told police: "I feel sad, desperate, defeated and ashamed."

Mr Justice Gross sentenced her to two years' prison, suspended for 18 months, and told her: "The pressures you faced were extreme."

You can go here to learn more about the Robert Latimer case.