A "controlling" mother who drowned her "miracle" twins in a bath after her husband left her has been jailed for 10 years.

Samantha Ford, 38, became obsessed with losing her "perfect life" in Qatar and killed 23-month-olds Jake and Chloe on Boxing Day last year.

Ford - described as "materialistic" during the sentencing hearing - left a suicide note before attempting to kill herself by driving into a lorry hours later in Margate, Kent.

Her heartbroken husband Steven Ford, who attended the Old Bailey hearing, said her actions were the "ultimate punishment".

His wife admitted two counts of manslaughter by diminished responsibility, saying in a letter read to the court: "I'm in torment. The fact they are not alive because of me is the hardest part of all."

She showed little emotion as she was sentenced before a packed public gallery by Judge Andrew Edis QC.

He said she would be transferred to a mental health ward and would serve the rest of her sentence in jail once she is discharged.

The court had previously heard that when police managed to open the doors of her vehicle in the wake of the crash, she told them: "I've killed my babies. Please let me die.

Tragic toddlers Jake (L) and Chloe Ford

"I put them in the bath. We were meant to be together. I was going to jump off a cliff but it's too dark."

While she was taken to hospital, police attended the address she was renting in Margate, Kent, where they found the two toddlers in their bedroom in nappies and clean, dry baby grows.

Judge Edis said: "You knew it would devastate their father and I'm sure that's one reason why you did it.

"You had killed the children within half an hour of their return to you by their grandparents.

"You killed them, dressed them, dried them and placed them back in their beds, their bodies facing away from each other towards the wall. You wrote the note and quickly left.

"The loss of these two young lives is a tragedy which will haunt their father and other members of two families for the rest of their lives. I accept it will also haunt you because you loved the children.

"You decided not to kill yourself and not to jump off the cliff, although that had been your plan. On your journey back from the cliff in your car you decided to drive in to the rear of a truck in a suicide attempt.

"This was very controlled behaviour and not impulsive or frenzied. You had been considering doing this for some time as your Google searches demonstrated.

"I accept you are a serious risk of suicide still."

Ford was sentenced to 10 years for each count, to run concurrently.

The Old Bailey had heard that Ford and her husband had spent the first 10 years of their marriage living in Qatar and their children were born by IVF while living there.

Steven Ford with his twins

But the relationship turned sour after they returned to the UK in early 2018 and moved to the village of Charing in Kent.

Ford was angry at leaving her affluent lifestyle in the Middle East and was said to be trying to pressure her husband into returning to Qatar - leading to their split in November 2018.

In one message to Mr Ford, she said: "You have ripped my world apart now we are nothing but a miserable, broken family growing up in a s**t hole."

Relatives said Ford's mental health declined rapidly following the separation and that she was suffering acute depression. She sent multiple text messages to her estranged husband trying to persuade him to return to her, the court heard.

In a victim impact statement, Mr Ford said he thought his children would have been "terrified, confused and that they suffered" in death.

He said: "This was the most heinous, spiteful act on two innocent children. I have no doubt she did this with the intention of taking her own life and punishing me in the process."

He added: "I know how she behaves when things don't go her way and when she doesn't get what she wants.

"It's an extreme version of her character because she couldn't get her own way - knowing how much I loved the children she knew it would be the ultimate punishment for me not going back to her."

Brenda Campbell QC, in mitigation, read a statement from her client that said: "I'm in torment.

"Their loss to me is indescribable and physically and mentally hurts.


Ms Campbell added: "At the heart of this case it falls to your lordship to sentence a young mother who has been destroyed by her actions, who has destroyed and devastated family and friends and communities on all sides.

"Samantha Ford sits before you as a young woman of good character who no-one foresaw would ever be in this situation."

The QC said her client's family laughed at her "controlling" tendencies and added: "The reality is that the very characteristics that made her family love her and accept her for who she is; that made her an excellent mother to those two children, that made her able to look after them largely by herself in Qatar and following the move to England; that made her able to control two babies home alone all day, are also aspects of her personality that made her particularly susceptible to the catastrophic decline of her mental health.

"The anger towards him (Steven Ford) as a result of the breakdown of the marriage is entirely independent of what she did on the 26th into the 27th of December."