THE sister of a woman who strangled her two-year-old son has described the heartbreaking moment she heard what had happened in a telephone call.

Julie Stout recalled the moment her sister said she had killed her son, Christy, and heard her kissing his lifeless body.

Melanie Ruddell, 40, strangled Christy at her brother’s home in West Rainton, near Durham City, hours after friends and family had tried to get her admitted to hospital, when she suffered a sudden mental breakdown.

But Mrs Ruddell refused to stay at the hospital to wait for psychiatric assessment by a crisis team and discharged herself, frantic to get back to her son.

As her brother, Neil Close, slept on in a nearby bedroom, Mrs Ruddell stabbed and strangled Christy, before driving with his body to Peterlee Police Station in August last year.

The 40-year-old, of Dene View, Castle Eden, near Peterlee, was later detained under the Mental Health Act after admitting manslaughter on the grounds of diminished repsonsibility.

Giving evidence at an inquest hearing in Sunderland yesterday, Ms Stout said that on the morning of the tragedy, her sister had called her and said: “I have escaped. I have worked it all out. You are all in it together.”

Ms Stout said: “She said she wouldn’t forgive us for terrorising Christy. She was quite calm. I asked where Christy was and she said, ‘He’s here sitting on my knee’. She said she loved and adored him. She was kissing him. I never heard any other noise.”

After Mrs Ruddell told her what she had done to Christy, Ms Stout contacted her brother and broke the news to him.

He rushed to her room to find she and Christy were gone. Mr Ruddell later went to Peterlee police station, where he saw her car and the police station cordoned off. He was told to go home Mr Close said: “I had the awful thought she may have done it in my house. When I went into her bedroom it became apparent she had. At that moment, I saw a knife with blood on it.”

He added: “I didn’t believe she would do anything silly. I thought if something tragic happened, then Melanie would do something to herself.

“Not for one second did it cross my mind (to be concerned) for Christy. She loved that little boy.”

Giving evidence via a videolink from a hospital, Mrs Ruddell told an earlier hearing: “I was confused.

“I was hearing voices screaming. I couln’t connect anything with reality.

The inquest continues.