A mother, who burnt her eight-year-old son to death because he told his stepfather she had cheated on him, has been jailed in Russia.
Anastasia Baulina, 32, a cashier from the Kursk region near the border with Ukraine, admitted to dousing son Andrey with petrol before setting fire to him with a match.
Baulina had tried to convince a court that she only meant to punish Andrey and not kill him, saying she had quickly put out the flames with snow.
Natalya said that Baulina had made her watch as she doused Andrey with fuel, before telling her ‘let’s go watch how the scarecrow burns’.
Baulina tried to convince a court that she only meant to punish her son, but judges rejected her story when daughter Natalya (right) told how she had not tried to put the flames out.
In a reenactment that was filmed by police, Baulina demonstrated on a plastic dummy how she poured petrol over Andrey’s head.
She then struck three matches which all blew out, before successfully lighting a fourth which she threw at his jumper.
She recounted how Andrey had run screaming into the garden and fallen down on his hands and knees before claiming she covered him with snow.
Despite Andrey’s hands being on fire, Baulina said she helped him douse the flames.
But Natalya gave a very different account – saying it was actually Pavel who put the fire out after he heard the boy’s screams and came running from inside the house.
Meanwhile Baulina screamed at the boy: “I will teach you to keep your mouth shut.”
Natalya added that Andrey had begged his mother “please, don’t” before she lit the match, but she had ignored his pleas.