Janice Nix, 67, has been found guilty of manslaughter after new evidence emerged to show she placed five-year-old Andrea Bernard in a hot bath as a form of punishment back in 197814:22, 26 May 2026Updated 14:25, 26 May 2026This is the tragic young girl who died after being scalding in her boiling bath by her evil stepmother.‌Andrea Bernard was just five years old when Janice Nix punished her at her home in Thornton Heath, south London, back in 1978. The woman, 67, burst into tears as today she was finally found guilty of manslaughter this afternoon, nerly 50 years after the shocking crime.‌The tragic tot had pleaded "this is too hot, mummy" as she suffered serious burns to half of her body. Andrea died in hospital on 13 July, five weeks after the incident. Police have today released an image of the child looking forward to her final Christmas following Nix's conviction. Andrea's death was treated as an accident until her older brother went to police in 2022 with a new account of what happened, Isleworth Crown Court heard.‌READ MORE: Girl's stepmum who killed her with scalding bath water found guilty decades laterREAD MORE: Girl, 5, said 'this is too hot mummy' as 'killer forced her into scalding bath'She was also found guilty of the assault and ill-treatment of Andrea’s older brother Desmond Bernard between 1975 and 1978. During voluntary police interview, Nix gave a "completely different" version of events to the one she provided the coroner in 1978, prosecutor Kerry Broome said.Mr Bernard had approached the force after his sister's death "had become a burden he could no longer carry", she added. The man, now 56, said Nix regularly beat the children for things as petty as not folding their clothes "to her standards".‌Nix, then called Janice Thomas and in her late teenage years, had the main responsibility for their care as their father was often away working as a chauffeur, jurors were told.Giving evidence during the trial, Mr Bernard, tearfully told the court that he had initially described his sister's death as an accident because he wanted Nix to stop beating him.‌Mr Bernard said that Nix beat him with a belt, burned him with a cigarette, bit him and made him eat cat food. He said that Nix regularly beat the children, even for not folding their clothes "to her standards". Mr Bernard described Nix as physically "strong" with a "heavy-set build".Jurors heard that on June 6 1978, Nix was "furious" after Andrea ignored instructions not to leave the house and to help clean instead. Nix shouted at Andrea in an "extremely loud" voice before beating her, the court heard. Mr Bernard said he later heard the bath running.He went on: "I could hear Janice shouting 'get in the bath' and I could hear Andrea saying ‘the bath is too hot mummy'. I could hear Janice shouting ‘get in the bath, get in the bath’ and then I heard screaming and splashing. Then I heard the screaming stopped and I could hear Janice calling Andrea to 'wake up, wake up'."‌During the 1978 inquest investigation, Nix had initially claimed Andrea took a bath on her own and later complained of itchy legs before fainting, jurors heard.But she admitted during her trial to giving a false account of the events to the coroner because she was “in a panic” over having failed to supervise Andrea while she took a bath.‌“I realised I had done something I shouldn’t have done: I should have been with Andrea,” she told jurors. "I was young and I was clearly not thinking. On hindsight now, I see my negligence as a teenager.”The woman was arrested at Heathrow Airport on February 18, 2025, after arriving on a flight from Antigua, and was charged later that day. Nix had denied both the charges of manslaughter and cruelty to a child.Aisling Hosein of the Crown Prosecution Service said: “This was a harrowing case where Janice Nix subjected Andrea and her older brother to a sustained period of abuse, culminating in the tragic death of a five-year-old girl after she was forced into a scalding hot bath.Article continues below“This prosecution only came about after Andrea’s brother reported his stepmother’s actions to police in September 2022, resulting in the circumstances into what happened on that day in 1978 being re-examined. I can only imagine the enormous courage this must have taken to come forward after being told as a child to say the incident was just an accident. It is thanks to him that we have been able to secure justice today on behalf of Andrea almost five decades on."