Mother’s retrial for drowning her children

A WOMAN had her convictions for drowning her children one by one in a bathtub overturned yesterday after a court ruled that a psychiatrist gave false evidence at her trial.

America was stunned in 2001 when Andrea Yates was accused of murdering her five children in the bath of their family home in Texas.

She was tried for three of the killings in Houston and sentenced to life in prison by a jury which rejected her defence of insanity.

But after the conviction Yates’s lawyers reviewed the expert evidence given by psychiatrist Park Dietz.

Dr Dietz told the court he had consulted on the TV show Law and Order for an episode involving a woman found innocent by reason of insanity for drowning her children.

The court was told Yates may have seen the episode.

But after the trial, Yates’s lawyers discovered no such episode existed and called for a retrial from Houston’s First Court of Appeals.

In granting the retrial, the court said: “We conclude there is a reasonable likelihood Dr Dietz’s false testimony could have affected the judgment of the jury. We further conclude Dr Dietz’s false testimony affected the substantial rights of appellant.”

It was not known whether Yates would be freed pending her retrial.

Her lawyer George Parnham said: “I’m stunned, unbelievably happy and desperately trying to get hold of Andrea.”

Dr Dietz has said he confused Law and Order with another programme.

Yates called police to her home on June 20, 2001, and showed them the bodies of her five children: Noah, seven, John, five, Paul, three, Luke, two, and six-month-old Mary.

She had called the children into the bathroom and drowned them one by one, the court heard.

The jury was told Yates was overwhelmed by motherhood, considered herself a bad mother, and had attempted suicide and been hospitalised for depression.

Prosecutors argued that even though she was mentally ill, she could tell right from wrong and was not legally insane.