By Nick Griffiths Crime Reporter

Last updated 20:02, Monday, 08 September 2008

A mother who was cleared of murder after killing her two young sons while mentally ill has spoken for the first time, saying: “I am not a monster.”

Meghan Lippiatt

Meghan Lippiatt, 32, formerly of Brampton, also told how she visits the graves of her baby son Myles and his two-year-old brother Silas every day.

Mrs Lippiatt, cleared by a US court last December, was speaking more than four years after killing the children in her native state of Pennsylvania, weeks after leaving Cumbria.

“I miss them incredibly and if anybody thinks anything was gotten away with, they’re wrong,” she said.

“I have to live every day with that loss and knowing that it was me that caused it and it’s very difficult to handle.”

Mrs Lippiatt suffocated Myles and then drowned Silas in a bath at her family’s farmhouse.

She and the children had previously been living with her husband Daniel at Main Street, Brampton.

Divorce proceedings are now underway for the couple, although Mr Lippiatt, the son of Michael and Elizabeth Lippiatt, from Stanwix, Carlisle, says they are “not of his choosing”.

Prosecutors argued that Meghan was guilty of first degree murder, which carries the death sentence.

But the court accepted that at the time she killed her sons she was suffering a severe post-natal mental illness.

Mrs Lippiatt walked free following another court appearance this week in which the judge rejected prosecution requests she be ordered to undergo more psychiatric treatment.

Speaking afterwards, she said: “I want in some way to try to be understood. I am not a monster, I am not at all.

“I remember being controlled by something that was stronger than me. And being able to look back now, I believe that was illness.”

Mrs Lippiatt described Silas as “amazing”. “He was my heart. Very inquisitive, very sensitive, but just my little friend, you know? He was just a good kid.”

She remembered Myles as gentle, “very big, [a] strong kind of baby”.

“I feel very blessed to be given this second chance that a lot of people don’t get,” she told the Associated Press.

“It’s very bittersweet, because the one thing I wanted in my life the most isn’t there.”

The boy’s grieving father believes the authorities failed to act “as a safety net” to prevent the tragedy.

His criticism was echoed in an official review of how Cumbria County Council’s Social Services handled the case.

The authority has pointed out that since the children’s deaths, multi-agency safeguarding arrangements have been strengthened.

Mr Lippiatt, 34, said the events “changed lives forever”, revealing he was now homeless and doing voluntary work for the Independent Victims Helpline UK and London’s air ambulance.

He said he had not seen his wife since her acquittal.

He added: “I’m very pleased to hear that in a way things can now begin again. I do not blame my wife. Although the loss of children is exceptionally painful, children are such a blessing when they are alive that the time you spend with them changes you forever in a good way.”

Mrs Lippiatt had been living in Brampton when she began hearing voices and became convinced her children were possessed by a demon.

Two months before the killings, she dialled 999 and told the operator that she needed help and couldn’t hold on.

On another occasion she had a breakdown at Newcastle Airport and locked herself in a car with the boys.

She was taken to hospital and the children left in the care of their paternal grandparents in Carlisle.

But Mrs Lippiatt’s father John Kelleher flew to England and took them to the US.

On April 18, 2004, as her condition seemed to improve, and when she was left alone with the children for the first time, that she took their lives. She then attempted suicide by swallowing pills before dialling 911, saying: “I’ve just killed my kids.”