Wirral mum Laura Fletcher's letter to Chloe, the daughter she drowned

Oct 14 2009 by Chloe Griffiths, Birkenhead News

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A TORMENTED mum drowned her four-year-old daughter in the bath and then wrote a letter telling her she was sorry.

Paranoid Laura Fletcher feared little Chloe was going to be taken away by her dad and social services.

After drowning the youngster in a bath of cold water, she wrapped her in a towel and slept with her for the night before trying to take her own life.

Fletcher, 23, was last week detained in hospital indefinitely for killing Chloe at their Wallasey home in April.

Liverpool Crown Court heard her mental health had been deteriorating undetected for at least three years.

Psychiatrists said she was suffering from “persecutory delusions” and a senior consultant told the court she had one of the severest cases of paranoid schizophrenia he had ever seen.

In a victim impact statement read to the court, grandmother Julie Marr, the mother of Chloe’s dad, Dean, said: “Chloe was the centre of our lives. We cherished every second we had with her. We pray and wish deeply she was still here with us.

“Every day is a struggle to simply exist. I love and miss Chloe so much – there is not a second she is not in my thoughts."

Ms Marr added: “I live with the image in my mind of the day I went to identify Chloe's body.

“I just wanted to pick her up and hold her one last time. Her gorgeous smiling face is with me always and I visit her every week at her grave.”

She finished the statement, saying: “We will never get over losing Chloe. My heart is broken forever.”