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

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

The defence argued Stefania'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.

Following a trial at Bristol Crown Court, which included evidence from psychiatrists, a jury found the 64-year-old to be not guilty. Stefania is due to be sentenced at 14:00 BST.

The pair had shared a meal together on Christmas Eve before they went to sleep in their shared bedroom.

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

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

The jury was told Stefania, 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.

Bristol Crown Court also heard 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," Stefania previously told a police interview which 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".

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

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

He also said Stefania 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.

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