n A mUM who stabbed her daughter to death and tried to kill herself by drinking anti-freeze has failed to have her sentence cut at London’s Appeal Court.

Former nurse Dawn Makin, aged 35, hatched a plan to kill herself and four-year-old Chloe after falling victim to crippling debts and increasing social isolation, the court heard.

She had lost her job, but pretended to her family she was still working and had become increasingly desperate in the weeks before the killing, said Mr Justice Eder.

A final straw came when she was let down by a former lover on Valentine’s Day, which she “took very badly”, the court heard.

Makin left a series of suicide notes in her home in Lea Mount Drive, Bury, before trying to kill herself with a cocktail of anti-freeze and paracetamol.

Makin and Chloe were found after her mother and a neighbour grew anxious about their welfare and broke into her home.

Makin had stabbed Chloe to death, said the judge, and “defensive wounds” on her arms indicated she had tried to fight back when her mother attacked her.

Afterwards, Makin washed her daughter’s blood-stained clothes and dressed her in clean pyjamas and a dressing gown — before laying her body out next to her, surrounded by her teddies.

Chloe was dead, but Makin survived with severe injuries which have left her wheelchair-bound. She was jailed for 12 years at Preston Crown Court in August last year after admitting manslaughter.

Challenging her sentence, her lawyers claimed it was a case of “extended suicide” and the jail term took insufficient account of her disturbed state of mind.

Mr Justice Eder, sitting with Lord Justice Leveson and Judge Michael Stokes, said Makin’s crime was “truly appalling”, noting she had inflicted “horrific injuries” on her own daughter.

Although Makin was depressed, she had the “necessary intention to kill”, the judge said. “We don’t consider it is arguable that the sentence was wrong in principle or manifestly excessive.”