A mother who killed her 12 year-old autistic son by making him drink bleach is to be assessed at a mental hospital for three months.

Satpal Kaur Singh, 44, forced Ajit Singh to swallow a cup of Domestos because she feared that social services would take him away.

She then tried to kill herself the same way before dialling 999 from the family home in Barking.

Police later found a note reading: “Please burn us together. If you people do not let us stay alive peacefully then maybe we can be together when we are dead.”

Singh pleaded guilty to manslaughter by reason of diminished responsibility last month.

Two psychiatrists disagree over whether she should be treated in a hospital or sent to prison.

Today the Recorder of London Peter Beaumont QC made an interim hospital order for 12 weeks until February 28, 2011.

Singh will be assessed by doctors at the John Howard Centre in Homerton, east London.

Further psychiatric reports will be considered by the court before sentencing.

One psychiatrist concluded she was suffering from post traumatic stress disorder which can be treated in hospital.

But the second, for the prosecution, found she had a paranoid personality disorder, which cannot be treated.