Grandmother of accused child killer says her babies also died

THE grandmother of a woman accused of killing three of her own babies yesterday told a court how she herself had lost five children in early infancy.

Surajben Patel, 80, from a village in the Gujarat region of India, said five of her 12 children had died within a month-and-a-half of being born.

Speaking through an interpreter, Mrs Patel told Reading Crown Court that she could not explain why her children had died.