Carer who 'couldn't go on' not guilty of mother's murder

A woman has been found not guilty of murdering her elderly mother after deciding she "couldn't go on" caring for her.

Stefania Glowka, 64, had denied murdering Tamara Glowka, 86, at their home in Devizes, Wiltshire, on Christmas Day 2025, but had pleaded guilty to manslaughter based on diminished responsibility.

The defence argued Glowka's depression had substantially impaired her ability to make rational judgements on the night she strangled her mother with a belt before trying to take her own life.

She is due to be sentenced for manslaughter at Bristol Crown Court later.

Addressing the jury on Tuesday, Judge Julian Lambert said: "Trial by jury is a vital part of our functioning democracy.

"Thank you for helping promote democracy in our land."

Glowka had made her mum her favourite meal on Christmas Eve before they both went to sleep in their shared bedroom.

When Tamara got up to use the toilet, her daughter strangled her with a belt and then attempted to end her own life.

After waking up hours later, she called 999 and said she had "committed a crime and needed to be held responsible".

The jury was told Glowka, who never married or had children, had wanted to "let her mum go" after she was diagnosed with schizophrenia and both women experienced a deterioration in their mental health.

The court heard Stefania Glowka, who grew up in Poland before moving to the UK in the early 1990s, had a recurrent depressive disorder.

From 2004, she was the primary carer for her mother, who never learned English and towards the end of her life suffered from hallucinations and psychosis.

"I'm the only child of a single mother," Glowka said in a police interview that was played in court. "All my life it was just the two of us.

"We don't have any family. We are like two old dinosaurs at the end of the line."

Glowka told police it was a "spur of the moment" decision to strangle her mother, and told the court she "wasn't thinking clearly".

Simon Jones, prosecuting, argued it was a "deliberate act" that was carefully planned out.

Nicholas Corsellis, for the defence, said on Monday that Glowka was not making rational judgements because she was "acting in the fog of despair".

He also said she was "devoted to her mother" but was "increasingly struggling to cope", and her actions had "broke the habits of a lifetime and everything she had lived for".

"She made rational decisions in the morning, but this contrasts with the middle of the night when that function was terribly and substantially impaired," he said.

Bacon agreed with fellow psychiatrist Dr Richard Latham that her depression also did not substantially impair her ability to exercise control or understand her own conduct.

When cross-examined by the prosecution, Glowka accepted she was in control and understood what she was doing, and that she was capable of making rational judgements.

Responding to the case, Dr Siobhan O'Dwyer, associate professor at University of Birmingham, said her research had found: "One murder or murder suicide takes place every month in Wales and England perpetrated by unpaid carers."