Mum who killed baby with paracetamol after writing chilling diary notes jailed

A TEEN mum who killed her baby son with a paracetamol overdose after writing a chilling diary entry has been jailed.

Ellie Jacobs, 19, laced 38-day-old Archie Jacobs’ milk with the medicine.

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The newborn had also suffered two sets of fractures – one to his right tibia and four to the big toe of his right foot – in the days leading up to his death.

Jacobs has now been jailed for five years after pleading guilty to manslaughter.

Luton Crown Court was told the mum, who was 16 when she gave birth to Archie, had been living in Biddlesden on the same caravan site as her mum Sarah and stepdad.

Tragically, her mum was run over and killed by Jacobs’ partner Christopher Martin May 10, 2020.

Friends and family offered to take care of Archie for the teen mum but she refused their pleas.

Jacobs also declined help from social services to stay at a mother and baby unit with Archie placed on a Child Protection Plan.

Despite the Covid pandemic, a social worker conducted weekly visits and noted the home was clean but cluttered with a lot of animals.

On June 5, 2020, when Archie was just five weeks old, paramedics were scrambled to the caravan.

Tragically the baby couldn’t be saved and was declared dead at the scene.

While searching Jacobs’ home, police discovered a diary containing chilling entries written just two weeks before she killed her son.

One said: “I don’t know how much longer I can keep up this act of being ok. I don’t even know what it feels like to be ok anymore.

“I don’t think I will ever feel that again. I mean I feel like I’ve (sic) everything, even my home which is crazy because I have a roof over my head but this place just doesn’t feel like home. I don’t know where home is anymore.

“My home was always where my mum was. As long as I had my mum I was ok.“

Jacobs went on to write that she hated “every single second” without her mum and told how was “seriously starting to struggle with everything”.

The mum added: “I hate myself so much because every time I look over at Archie I feel absolutely nothing, when he cries I just don’t care, and when my neighbour takes him off my hands for a couple of hours to give me a break, I deep down hope for that break to never end.

“I don’t know if it’s right but when I am away from Archie I don’t miss him at all I just feel a weight lifted from my shoulders.

“I have no clue if it’s just because I have a lot going on right now and I am struggling without my mum, or if it’s because of [ex partner] because Archie is a reminder of [him] and all the hurt he caused me emotionally and physically!”

A post mortem found little Archie died from acute paracetamol toxicity.

Detective Chief Inspector Will Crowther of the Major Crime Unit, at Thames Valley Police, said: “This is an absolutely tragic case. Baby Archie died when he was only five weeks old.

“Ellie Jacobs has admitted causing Archie’s broken leg and foot in the days prior to his death, as well as admitting that she administered the large paracetamol overdose that caused his death.

“This has been a long investigation that has always sought to find the truth as to what happened to Baby Archie, and I am glad that during the trial Ellie Jacobs finally accepted responsibility for her dreadful actions.

“I am hoping that the fact that Jacobs has now pleaded guilty and been sentenced, it will help the rest of Archie’s family to begin to move forward following this unbearable period for them.”

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