Janice Nix, 67, had her passport and mobile phone seized by police moments after her plane touched down at Heathrow Airport before she was arrested for the manslaughter16:18, 26 May 2026Janice Nix arrested for 1978 death of her stepdaughter This is the moment police swarmed a plane to arrest a woman who caused the death of a five-year-old girl after placing her in a scalding bath as a form of punishment.‌Janice Nix placed little Andrea Bernard in the boiling water at her home in Thornton Heath, south London, almost 50 years ago and today she has finally been brought to justice for the shocking crime. Andrea died in hospital on 13 July, 1978, five weeks after the incident.‌Her death was treated as an accident until her older brother went to police in 2022 with a new account of what happened. The woman, 67, burst into tears as she was found guilty of manslaughter this afternoon and following her conviction, Metropolitan Police have released body-worn video of the moment they arrived at Heathrow Airport to take her into custody.‌READ MORE: Heartbreaking photo of girl, 5, scalded to death in hot bath by evil stepmumREAD MORE: Girl's stepmum who killed her with scalding bath water found guilty decades laterThe arresting officer is heard on board asking if she remembers her from a number of years ago, before asking shocked Nik to hand over her passport and her mobile phone. She is then escorted off the plane and is read her rights in an airport corridor.The woman is then seen removing her glass and a bag from her shoulder as she takes in the news. She was informed her arrest was necessary to prevent her disappearance, before being taken in for questioning.‌The tragic tot had pleaded "this is too hot, mummy" as she suffered serious burns to half of her body. 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.She was also found guilty of the assault and ill-treatment of Andrea’s older brother Desmond Bernard between 1975 and 1978. 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."