Northern Ireland

Woman who killed her baby son is freed on probation

Mr Justice Seamus Treacy told the weeping mother `justice would not be served by sending you back to prison'
Mr Justice Seamus Treacy told the weeping mother `justice would not be served by sending you back to prison' Mr Justice Seamus Treacy told the weeping mother `justice would not be served by sending you back to prison'

A "tormented and broken" mother-of-two, who killed her youngest son while in the grip of postnatal despair and a fear she had passed on "bad genes", has been freed on probation.

Mr Justice Seamus Treacy told the weeping 32-year-old woman: "I consider that justice would not be served by sending you back to prison."

The defendant, who cannot be named, was assessed by three different consultant psychiatrists who were all "unanimous in the view that at the time of the offence the defendant was suffering from a severe depressive episode with psychotic features following the birth of her second child".

The judge said the woman had "expressed the deepest remorse and sorrow to her husband and surviving son".

A prison chaplain described her as "a tormented and broken woman... who has never once forgotten the tragedy that occurred at her hands".

She had originally been charged with the murder of her five-month-old son, but all medical and legal experts agreed the appropriate charge was `infanticide', which she admitted.

The woman is on probation for three years, on condition she follows and complies with all medical, psychiatric, psychological or counselling assessment or treatments.

Failure to do so could result in re-sentencing.

Earlier this month Belfast Crown Court heard emergency services received a 999 call at 7.45am on March 7, 2014 from a woman saying she had "killed her baby".

Police and paramedics found the "dazed" mother sitting alone on a sofa at her Belfast home.

Her baby was found lying, unmoving, on his back in a cot in a bedroom, with blood around his nose and mouth and was a "poor colour".

She told police: "I just killed my baby, I just suffocated him" and was later heard saying "I can't believe what I have done."

Unfit for detention or interview, the mother admitted under the Mental Health Order to Knockbracken, but later spent 13 months in custody on remand before being granted bail.

The woman provided police with a written statement about the events, saying her "mind was not right".

"I can't believe that I did this. If I felt the way I feel now, this would not have happened. I wish I could turn back the clock.

"I wish that I could hold him and hug him and kiss him. I miss him so much and my family will never be complete.

"I am so sorry to my husband and to our other son. I have taken everything away from my son, his whole future and this will haunt me for the rest of my life."

Medical notes revealed the woman feared she had given her son brain damage because she had left heating on in the apartment for too long.

She was also convinced her eldest child had been affected by the flu jab - at the same time believing her youngest had suffered because she had not taken him for the injection.

After being told her eldest son was probably on the autistic spectrum, she felt guilty for "passing bad genes" on to both children.

The child died of 'hypoxic brain injury' - severe irreversible damage caused by lack of oxygen supply.

The court heard "she has lost her child, she has lost her family", with the baby's death leading to the break-up of her marriage.

She has also not seen her eldest child since March 2015.