High-flying professional killed her son and drank bleach in ‘manic episode’

A successful healthcare consultant who killed her four-year-old son by stabbing him in the neck 11 times has been sentenced to a hospital order.

Akanksha Adivarekar had got into bed with her son, Agustya Hegishte, while he slept and stabbed him on the morning of June 10, a judge was told.

The 37-year-old, an online influencer, then placed Agustya’s body in the bath, where she cuddled him before drinking drain unblocker and attempting to take her own life, a court heard. 

Anne Whyte KC told how Adivarekar had attended the St Mark’s community hospital in Maidenhead at 6pm, having travelled there from her home in Dunholme End, on a bus in her bloodstained dressing gown, the court heard.

Staff at the hospital noted she was bleeding from the wrist and seemed ‘zoned out’, the prosecutor said.

Adivarekar told medics she had killed her son to ‘end his suffering’, something which psychiatrists later concluded was due to a manic episode.

The defendant made a number of allegations against her husband, but Ms Whyte said the police had investigated and there was ‘no foundation for those allegations’.

A post-mortem examination found Agustya had suffered 11 stab wounds to the neck and there was ‘evidence of the use of a caustic liquid’.

While in HMP Bronzefield, Adivarekar drank bleach again and had to be placed on 24-hour suicide watch after undergoing life-saving surgery, the court heard.

Her husband of ten years and Augustya’s father, who worked in IT, read an emotional victim impact statement in court, where he said: ‘I have lost my son, who was everything to me and also my wife. The pain of this loss is indescribable. 

He added: ‘All I can do is to forgive Akanksha for what she has done. I hope she lives a good, respectable life after her treatment. That would be the real justice for me and my son.’

The defendant looked directly ahead and showed no reaction as she listened to the court proceedings, while surrounded by staff from the Littlemore Mental Health Centre in Oxfordshire.

Adivarekar had worked as a healthcare consultant at Bupa for some years before getting a job in the HR department of Burnham Grammar School in Buckinghamshire, which boasts famous alumni such as the comedian Jimmy Carr and Mike Ashley, the CEO of Sports Direct. 

She had previously worked as a qualified dentist in her home of Mumbai, India before emigrating to the UK with her husband.

Adivarekar had become an influential ‘top voice’ on LinkedIn and described herself as a ‘penfluencer’, who shared artful images of fountain pens.

Adivarekar had left her post at Burnham Grammar School in May after the court heard she ‘had encountered difficulties in working relations with staff members’ at the school.

Psychologist Dr Iain Kooyman told the court Adivarekar had ‘gradually been  becoming unwell’ earlier this year and this would have affected her performance at work.

Judge Michael Grieve KC told her: ‘You require treatment, not punishment. Inherent in this tragic case is that you will suffer terrible pain from what you have done forever.

‘Agustya was a lovely, happy and loving son, well-settled in your local primary school. There were no welfare concerns. 

‘There was no rational motive for the offence. Until the manic episode, you had a normal, loving relationship with your son.

On Thursday, at Reading Crown Court, Judge Grieve added: ‘The death of your beloved child is the last thing in the world you would have wished for in your sane mind.’

Judge Grieve sentenced Adivarekar, who admitted manslaughter on the grounds of diminished responsibility at a hearing on December 3, to a hospital order under section 37 of the Mental Health Act 1983.

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