FOUR-year-old Chloe Burke had not been seen for three days before she was discovered dead at her home in Bury.

Her mother, Dawn Makin, collected Chloe from her childminder at 3pm on Monday, February 14, 2011, after she had spent the day at the nursery at St Joseph And St Bede’s RC Primary School.

That was the last time the youngster was seen alive, Preston Crown Court heard last Thursday.

Chloe’s body was found at her home in Lea Mount Drive, Fairfield, at 6.50pm on Thursday, February 17, with her unconscious mother beside her.

The court heard that Makin sent text messages to the childminder and her parents, Sheila and Derek Makin, on Tuesday, February 15 saying both she and Chloe were ill.

She said they were in bed with a stomach bug and would go to see a doctor.

At 6pm on Wednesday, February 16, Makin phoned her mum to thank her for putting out her bin. Makin later put a message on Facebook saying she and Chloe were in bed together, and read, but did not reply, to a text message from a friend at 10.35pm.

Several telephone calls and text messages went unanswered the following day and her mother noticed that Makin’s house was quiet and the curtains were closed.

Becoming “frantic with worry”, she spoke to a neighbour and they broke into Makin’s home, where they made the tragic discovery.

Makin was lying unconscious in bed, while Chloe was next to her, wearing blood-stained pyjamas and a dressing gown and surrounded by cuddly toys.

A number of carving knives and kitchen knives were found in the room.

The court was told that Chloe had “deep penetrating wounds”, and Peter Wright QC, prosecuting, said that Chloe had survived for several hours before she died from her injuries.

She had a “significant number” of wounds to her hands, where she had tried to defend herself, and tiny haemorrhages on her face which could be a sign of asphyxiation.

After stabbing her, Makin changed Chloe’s pyjama bottoms and tried to clean her top with water, the court heard.

Makin’s clothes were also blood-stained. She had taken paracetemol, cut her wrists and drank anti-freeze several hours before police officers arrived.

She had written several suicide notes to family and friends, including one warning her parents not to enter the room, the court heard.

On Chloe’s last picture, she wrote: “I’m so sorry I have taken her away from you all, but I couldn’t leave her here with no mummy. That would be too cruel. Sorry.”

Makin was rushed to hospital in a critical condition, where staff fought to save her life.

She survived, but suffered serious injuries which has left her permanently disabled and confined to a wheelchair.

When she was finally interviewed by police in August last year, she said she could not remember anything that had happened.

But Nicholas Johnson QC, defending, said she was already paying for what she had done.

He said: “She has to live with the fact that she has killed her own child, something which she can’t remember doing and even less understands.

“She has inflicted a terrible physical injury upon herself and none of this can be undone.

”Dawn Makin will never be released from the sentence she has imposed on her own life.”

He told the court that Makin was suffering from mental health problems at the time, which meant that although she understood what she was doing, she could not make a rational judgement.

It had been triggered by losing her job, facing prosecution and the end of her relationship with partner Martin Campbell.

Mr Johnson said that Makin saw her daughter as “an emotional and physical extension of herself” and decided to end both their lives in an “extended suicide”.

He said: “For Dawn Makin, killing Chloe was an integral part of killing herself. Dawn Makin didn’t try to kill herself because she had killed Chloe.”

But Judge Anthony Russell QC, Recorder Of Preston, said the case was “appalling” and had “all the ingredients of murder”.

As he jailed Makin for 12 years for manslaughter, he said: “I have to sentence you for this terrible crime. In doing so, it is necessary to weigh up the need to punish you for what you have done and reflect society’s horror at such a crime, but to reflect also the circumstances in which you were in, which reduces the crime from what would otherwise be murder and to take account of your present situation.

“In my judgement, there is no other option but to impose a custodial sentence of some significance. I am of the opinion that this offence is so serious that any other form of sentence cannot be justified.”