A MOTHER who tried to kill her five-year-old son in a road crash in Edgware last year has been found not guilty of attempted murder on the grounds that she is insane.

The 46-year-old woman, who cannot be named for legal reasons, deliberately drove her black Land Rover Discovery into the central reservations on the southbound M1, close to Junction 3, on July 21, 2009.

A jury at the Old Bailey today heard the mother, from High Wycombe, was suffering from paranoid psychosis and was convinced she and her young son were being followed.

Prosecution barrister Sarah Whitehouse said the crash, close to Gateway Services, happened less than half an hour after the woman had jumped in front of a moving train while cradling her son, at Watford Junction station.

She had arrived on platform eight at about 4pm and sat in the shelter. Mrs Whitehouse said the woman then stepped out again on to the platform a few minutes later carrying her son, walked for a few metres and jumped onto the track in the path of an on-coming train.

The driver managed to halt the train between six to ten feet away from the two people, who were in the middle of the track, the court heard.

When asked what had happened, the woman said she had slipped because she was wearing flip-flops on a wet surface, although her son was heard to say “why did you jump mummy?”

Mrs Whitehouse told how witnesses noticed the woman was shocked but “was not not crying and showed no emotion”.

The boy was “crying hysterically” and his mother “repeatedly” said to him: “I'm sorry, I didn't mean it.”

She rejected the support of station staff and got back into her Land Rover, placing her son in the back seat, but without securing his child seat, Mrs Whitehouse said.

She sped off from the station car park and at about 4.25pm she deliberately turned her vehicle into the central barrier along the M1 between Junctions 3 and 4. The Land Rover flipped onto its roof and skidded across three lanes of traffic before it came to a stop along the safety barriers.

The boy was airlifted to hospital and treated for several breaks and fractures to his arms. The woman was not injured but was later arrested and charged with two counts of attempted murder.

She was assessed by psychologists and deemed to be suffering serious psychosis. In a prepared statement, read out during one of her interviews, she said her son was “very dear” to her, she loved him “very much” and “would never knowingly do anything to hurt him”.

Forensic psychologist Dr Philip Joseph diagnosed the woman with paranoid psychosis and told the court the illness meant she would have been “out of touch with reality”.

He said: “She was expressing paranoid ideas and beliefs about conspiracies that were a threat to her own and her son's safety.”

Dr Joseph believed the condition had been brought on by the treatment towards her by work colleagues and her increasingly protective nature towards her son.

A report by a second psychologist supported Dr Joseph's assessment and Judge Peter Rook QC told the jury that none of the evidence put forward by the prosecution or the defence was in dispute.

He said the circumstances represented a “different” kind of case, and directed them to decide first on whether they believed she carried out the actions, and second, whether she was not guilty by reason of insanity.

The jury of six women and six men agreed she had tried twice to kill her son but found her not guilty on mental health grounds.

Judge Rook said she must serve a supervision order for two years under the watch of social services at Buckinghamshire County Council and must continue taking any prescribed medication.

Speaking directly to the woman, who stood in the dock wearing a black dress and grey blazer, Judge Rook said: “This is a tragic case. You have been found by this jury not guilty by reason of legal insanity.

“In the circumstances I believe the appropriate case is for a supervision order to ensure you have whatever psychiatric assistance you need.”