A mum who drank so much she passed out and suffocated her baby - two years after she lost another baby in similar circumstances - has avoided jail in Switzerland after judges cited her mental health as a cause for concern. Claire Ross, 39, passed out drunk on top of her baby in July 2020, resulting in her oldest kid, then six, discovering a horrific scene.
However, today, Ross was cleared of negligent homicide after a trial before a tribunal of judges in the town of Nyon, Switzerland. The tribunal handed down its judgment this afternoon at the Criminal Court of La Côte, which concluded she was not criminally responsible for her actions and ordered her to undergo compulsory treatment.
President of the tribunal, Patricia Cornaz, declared that Ross’s personality disorders and “borderline traits” meant she had no control over her “binge drinking”, meaning she was “released from the sanction of negligent homicide”. Ross, from St Helens, moved to Switzerland with her husband, Ian Ross, and eldest child in 2018, report Liverpool Echo.
The first tragedy struck that year at their apartment in Prangins, after she gave birth to her second child. Ross had taken the two-month old girl to bed after drinking heavily and then passed out, awaking to find the baby had died.
An investigation was carried out by local prosecutors, but was dropped after an autopsy could not find a clear cause of death, leaving open the possibility the baby died of natural causes. However the family were not referred to the Swiss social services and, in 2020, Ross welcomed her third child, another girl.
But in July that year, tragedy struck again after Ross got heavily drunk one morning. The court heard she left six-year-old girl, in front of the TV before taking the 10-month-old baby to bed.
Ross then passed out in a drunken stupor with her body on top of the baby girl’s. The child’s older sister, hearing strange cries from the room, tried to free the baby but was unable to wake her comatose mum.
She managed to free her baby sister and placed her in a pram before running to get help from a neighbour, who was still unable to wake Ross. She called the emergency services and the baby was rushed to hospital, where she was pronounced dead.
This time prosecutors pursued a criminal investigation and a post-mortem found the baby had died of suffocation. It also emerged that Ross’s severe alcohol problem had long pre-dated her move to Switzerland.
Back in 2017, Ross was convicted of drink-driving with yet another child, her eldest daughter, then aged three, on the back seat. Liverpool Magistrates’ Court heard that police came across Ross’s white Lexus on the hard shoulder of he M62 with a burst tyre, so went to see if they could assist the driver. In the vehicle they found Ross steaming drunk, and even noticed a bag of vomit in the front passenger side.
Ross told the officers her toddler was in the back-seat although there was no-one else in the car. It later emerged her husband had driven to the scene and collected the child, leaving his drunken wife to await the breakdown services.
Lynn Clark, prosecuting that case, told the court how the officers “noticed an overwhelming smell of alcohol, and noted her eyes were bloodshot and glazed, and that she was slurring her words”. Ross told the officers “I’m not a bad person”, but was breathalysed and turned out to be four and a half times over the legal limit.
She admitted driving with excess alcohol and was sentenced to 10 weeks in prison, suspended for 18 months, and referred to the Probation Service for five rehabilitation activity days. When Ross was approached outside court about her reckless behaviour, but she declined to comment.
After the death of her second child and before the court case, Ross was again caught drink driving in Switzerland after being found in her car outside a consultation she was attending. Prosecutors in Nyon described the death of her second child as a “remake in all respects” of the 2018 tragedy, and said it should have been prevented.
Ross’s solicitor, Patrick Sutter, also told the court Ross had been failed by mental health services and he was “convinced” that if a diagnosis had been made in 2018 the tragedy of 2020 could have been avoided.
Ross also addressed the court, telling judges: “I understood and accepted that I had no control over alcohol”. Speaking in English, she said she had been sober since October 2020, and that “peace” had returned to her family, even if “the reconstruction phase” was not yet over.
Judge Cornaz, referring to the opinion of psychiatric experts, said today: “Given her pathology, it was not possible for her to resist...Her internal conflicts became so unbearable that they had to be evacuated by a practice of binge drinking...She didn’t even realise that she was putting her children in danger.”
The court ordered that Ross continued psychiatric and addiction treatment for “as long as necessary” to prevent “reoccurrence”. According to Swiss reports, prosecutor Jean-Marie Ruede expressed “satisfaction” over the verdict. He said: “She is certainly acquitted in criminal matters, but she will have to live with two deaths on her conscience.”
The court heard Ross had since become a mother for a fourth time, although the baby, another girl, was removed from her care and she currently has supervised visits. The eldest girl was also taken into care but has since been returned to the family, although the court was told she is being monitored by a child psychologist and is “doing well”.
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