A killer stepmother who was convicted of manslaughter for forcing a five-year-old girl into a scalding bath once operated as a major drug dealer known as 'Mama J', peddling drugs across the UK, including in Birmingham.
Janice Nix, 67, was found guilty by a jury on Tuesday, May 26, of killing Andrea Bernard in Thornton Heath, south London, on June 6, 1978. She was also convicted of cruelty to Andrea's brother, Desmond, between October 1, 1975, and June 6, 1978, when he was aged seven to nine.
After the verdicts, full details of Nix's criminal past, as detailed in her memoir, can now be reported. During her life of crime, Nix carried a gun and conducted drug deals worth tens of thousands of pounds. She drove a white-leather-interior Vitara jeep with 'Nasty Girl' written in red and silver on its side around Brixton, south London. Nix also served a nine-year prison sentence.
Andrea's death was treated as an accident for nearly 50 years until her brother Desmond contacted police with new information in September 2022, Isleworth Crown Court heard. The year before the police investigation was launched, Nix published a book about her life titled Breaking Out, written with Elizabeth Sheppard.
Nix had been in a relationship with the children's father, also named Desmond Bernard, and acted as their stepmother. The memoir gives different names to the victims and Mr. Bernard Sr., and makes no mention of one child's death. The book indicates Nix was shoplifting while helping raise Andrea and Desmond, and suggests her criminal career escalated after her stepdaughter's death.
It details multiple convictions, including her first prison sentence of nine months in 1985 for shoplifting, resisting arrest, and failing to attend probation appointments. While inside, she reflected: 'Shoplifting? Dipping? What kind of pettiness was that? I was ashamed of the smallness of my crimes. I'd certainly learned from my mistakes, but what I'd learned was that I wanted to go harder – much harder. I made a big decision: as soon as I had done my time inside, I was stepping it right up. I was ready to rise to the next level.'
In 1992, she was jailed for nine years for possession of Class A drugs with intent to supply. Despite this, Nix turned her life around and became a probation officer. She entered Parliament to give evidence to MPs on ex-offenders seeking employment and won the Probation Service's diversity and engagement award in 2015.
In her book, she wrote: 'Instead of sending people to prison, I'd like to see far more opportunity for community resolution for women. The police could then record a resolved crime, but these women would not spiral off through the criminal justice system, getting more and more hurt at every stage.'
During her childhood, Nix lived in Leicester with her mother, with whom she had a fractious relationship. Her mother once threw a flower pot at her, which Nix threw back. The book read: 'Worst of all were the times when my uncle's friend tried to stroke my knee with his hot, dry hand and push himself against me when nobody else was around.'
In March 1976, she left for London without telling her mother. There, a woman taught her to steal, and she joined a posse stealing luxury goods from the West End. Nix described meeting Mr. Bernard Sr., named Emmanuel in the book, in a nightclub. He was a chauffeur for the High Commission of Trinidad and Tobago. She was 16 when they met, the trial heard.
Nix wrote that he and the children were a 'ready-made family', but 'life was quiet, uneventful' and she started to miss 'the excitement' of shoplifting. They had their own child, Nadia, in November 1979, a year after Andrea's death. The book describes Nix leaving baby Nadia sleeping and Mr. Bernard Sr. watching TV to visit a house with her shoplifting friend, where she took crack cocaine for the first time.
The couple's relationship broke down and ended. Nix started low-level drug dealing before shifting thousands of pounds worth of cocaine to dealers. She expanded her syndicate in 1988 with bases in Northampton, Birmingham, and Leicester. Nix had connections in the Midlands, the West Country, Wales, and even Guyana, according to the book.
One time, she traveled to Guyana and struck a deal with a major dealer named the Captain, who showed her a strongroom containing what she believed was around a hundred kilos of drugs. She sold the Captain's drugs, including in a botched deal in Northampton. After her associate and lover was robbed, she started carrying a Beretta Bobcat semi-automatic pistol.
Nix described finding the perpetrator in a casino, saying: 'He couldn't speak a word. I placed my red Yves Saint Laurent bag in the middle of the table, and opened the clasp. My Beretta Bobcat gleamed blue-black against its blood-red lining, baring its perfect little teeth.' She let him go with a warning.
Her property was raided by police and burgled by competitors. While serving a lengthy prison sentence in Holloway, Nadia moved to America to live with her father. Nix recalled Nadia asking for promises to stop drug dealing, but her old lifestyle resumed after release. She was arrested on the M1 for being concerned in the supply of cannabis.
In September 2001, while in HMP Morton Hall, Lincolnshire, she took a 16-week course to become a 'listener', comforting struggling prisoners. In 2004, she got her first job as a ward clerk in a community hospital. After various roles, she joined the London Probation Trust in 2014. Her women's group stopped in 2016 due to government funding cuts, and her role changed after the Probation Service was part-privatised.
She said: 'I knew what it was like to have no solid ground at all beneath your feet. More than I had ever wanted anything before, I wanted to help these women rebuild their lives.'
