Claire Button tried to kill herself after murdering her young son
A mum who smothered her autistic son before trying to kill herself has been locked up.
Claire Button penned a note which read “he does not fit in the world and where he doesn’t fit I don’t either” after murdering her five-year-old son Lincoln Button.
The 36-year-old had struggled with her mental health and tried to seek help, overdosing after smothering her son to death.
If her husband had not returned home, the mum would have died too.
Button, of Windstar Drive in South Ockendon, Essex, denied murder and admitted the lesser charge of manslaughter.
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A jury convicted her of murder following a trial at Basildon Crown Court.
She was jailed for life, with a minimum term of nine years, on Friday, October 17.
The killer mum wiped tears from her eyes during the hearing.
Sentencing, Judge Samantha Leigh described the trial as ‘one of the hardest’ she had heard ‘in almost 30 years’.
Button was described as a ‘loving, caring mother to her son’, the court heard.
Lincoln ‘was, as a result of his autism, very challenging indeed’, was non-verbal and had outbursts and meltdowns.
The boy would ‘sometimes want to go out 10 to 15 times per day’ to ride his scooter.
Lincoln Button
On the day of the killing on December 15 last year, he had a meltdown at a supermarket where he was ‘obsessed’ with the sliding doors.
When Button returned to the family’s flat with Lincoln, she decided to end her own life and his.
The judge said: “She was desperate and couldn’t see a way out of what was going on.”
Button ‘had on a number of occasions sought help’ as she struggled with her mental health in the months before the murder.
She had ‘called an ambulance but was told there was a 10-hour wait’.
The judge said Button killed Lincoln then overdosed on pills and cut her wrists.
She said: “If it hadn’t been for her husband returning home when he did there’s no doubt she would have died as well.”
Judge Leigh said there was ‘no premeditation’ to the killing and Button had ‘struggled in coping with Lincoln’.
She went on: “The stress she was under at the time in relation to this offence, that was exacerbated by the non-availability of emergency services,” said the judge.
The court heard Button wrote to the judge and said ‘there’s not a day goes by that she doesn’t think or long for her son and wishes there was a way to turn the clock back’.
The judge added: “I think it’s terribly telling… that she has received more care since being remanded for her mental health than she did on the outside.”
Button first went to hospital last August ‘seeking help’ but was ‘given medication and sent away’.
She described a ‘mere two phone calls she was given’ as ‘totally inadequate’.
Button’s husband Nicky Button was described in court as a ‘broken man’ who ‘has lost his son, he’s lost his wife who he stands by and still loves’.
Prosecutor Andrew Jackson said Mr Button had asked for his victim impact statement not to be read in court.
He said: “Perhaps the most powerful mitigating factor is the mental disorder which she was suffering at the time of her offending and the stress she was under at the time, although this fell short of the partial defence of diminished responsibility.”
Mark Cotter KC, defending, said Button was of previous good character.
He said: “It’s clear that she went above and beyond in trying to get assessments to get help.”
Mr Cotter continued: “She was plainly under considerable if not enormous stress at the time of the incident.”
Button had the ‘belief, albeit an irrational one, that she was acting out of mercy’, Mr Cotter added.
