The crime took place on the night of July 14, 2020. The day before she killed her husband, an official police statement claimed she’d heard a rumor about her husband that left her feeling “angry and very upset.” Chester Standard reported the rumor in question alleged her husband “had committed sexual abuse against children ‘for many years,’” including their son.
According to the judge’s sentencing notes via Chester Standard, Smith and her now-deceased husband, Michael Baines, had one child together, a son named Craig Baines. He reportedly died by suicide in 2007.
The outlet reported that before his death, Craig Baines was in prison for the assault of a man he claimed was a “pedophile.” Smith spent years blaming herself for the death of her son, said the judge, so when she heard the allegations made against her husband—that he had sexually assaulted Craig—she became “distressed.”
Smith filled a bucket with boiling water and three bags of sugar. “As Michael lay asleep in bed,” reads the statement, “she poured the contents over his arms and torso” and then left to tell a neighbor what she had done. The neighbor then called the police.
When officers arrived at the scene, they found Baines “whimpering” in bed, with the skin on his right arm already peeling off. They took him to hospital where he remained in stable condition for two weeks before eventually passing away.
“Smith killed her husband Michael in such a painful and cruel way,” said Det. Chief Inspector Paul Hughes in the police’s statement. “To throw boiling water over someone when they are asleep is absolutely horrific. To also mix three bags of sugar with the water showed the determination she had to cause serious harm.”
Smith was initially charged with grievous bodily harm but was charged with murder after Baines’s death.
The judge reminded Smith that because she killed her husband, it was now impossible for the courts to determine whether or not the allegations made against him were true.
“Although the background provides some explanation as to why you did what you did, I am sure you know that it cannot provide an excuse,” the judge said according to Chester Standard.
“Killing Mr. Baines also took away any opportunity for the allegations to be tested,” the judge continued. “That took away his right to a fair trial, bearing in mind that everyone is innocent until proven guilty.”
Out of Cheshire’s 343 towns, Crime Rate UK reported that Neston is among the top 10 most dangerous of the county’s small towns, as well as the 96th most dangerous towns overall. In 2020, the overall crime rate was 46 crimes per 1,000 people, a much lower rate than Cheshire as a whole, which has a crime rate of 73 crimes per 1,000 people. Sadly, violence and sexual offenses are the most common crimes to occur in Neston, and the trend for both is said to be getting worse.
