A Folkestone mum tried to drown her nine-year-old son in the bath telling him: “You have got to join the angels."

The petrified schoolboy fought back, pleading with his mother: “Why are you drowning me? I don’t want to die.”

During the incident, he was struck by a falling saucepan which cut his eye, Canterbury Crown Court heard.

The 49-year-old mother – who cannot legally be named to protect the identity of the victim – has now been ordered to be detained under the Mental Health Act.

Psychiatrists had diagnosed that at the time of the attack she had been suffering from a psychotic mental illness and a bipolar-affected disorder.

She had denied attempted murder in July last year, but pleaded guilty to the lesser charge of child cruelty – and the Crown Prosecution Service accepted the pleas.

A month before the attack she had "rather strangely" written to social services claiming “in her opinion that her son seemed to think they were a couple and he behaved more like her husband and boyfriend than her son" the court heard.

Oliver Dunkin, prosecuting, told how a relative had reported the boy’s claim how she had tried to drown him in the bath.

“His account was that she (his mother) had drawn a bath for him about 20 to 30 cms high," he said. "He had reached over to get his rubber duck and while he was doing that she had pushed his head under the water and said: 'You have got to join the angels... because you are too slow at getting ready for school.'

"He described struggling with his mother and pushing her away.

“He said to her: ‘Why are you drowning me... I don’t want to die?’ On the side of the bath was a saucepan with a broken handle, which she would used to wash her hair.

“Although it wasn’t being used at the time it fell on him and the broken end of the handle caused a small cut to his eye. He began crying and screaming telling her that he didn’t want to die.

"he had reached over to get his rubber duck and while he was doing that she had pushed his head under the water and said: 'you have got to join the angels...” – oliver dunkin, prosecuting

“It would appear that the bleeding snapped her out of it and she took him to hospital where the wound was treated, “ he added.

The child told people the injury had been caused accidentally – although he later revealed the truth to relatives.

After her arrest, the mother told police: “It’s all got out of hand. We were play acting.”

Later she admitted to police: “I was going to throw myself off a cliff. I wish I had done it now. The pregnancy was a slip-up.”

Relatives revealed how she had gone to Dover pier with her son and told him “to get behind the railings”, but he refused - telling her: “No, because you might push me.”

Seven years earlier she had made a suicide claim in a letter to her GP, saying she felt guilty for not terminating the pregnancy.

Mr Dunkin said that she also claimed her son was “fat and will never achieve anything”.

When Judge Adele Williams heard that social services chiefs were encouraging contact between mother and son, she said: “I am not entirely happy with that” and ordered a transcript of the case to be sent to the authorities.

Thomas Restell, defending, said: “She was going through a really turbulent time in her life and would not really have wanted to cause him any harm. She is still not fully better.”