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A mother who dumped the body of her baby in a drain after lying about being raped has been jailed for a year.

Sinead Connett, 29, wrapped baby William in plastic bags before she shoved his body into a drain outside her parents' hour.

She had told her parents and police that she had been raped by a taxi driver and needed to keep her pregnancy secret in case her relationship broke down.

But the HR executive's baby was hers with her partner.

It is still not known how baby William died.

(Image: Ross Parry +44 (0) 113 2361842)

Her son’s tiny corpse was found in a drain in Grimsby, Lincolnshire, the home of her parents in February last year.

He had suffered injuries including a fractured skull but they may have been accidentally caused when the body was being removed by a plumber investigating a drain blockage.

Connett claimed the baby had died when she secretly gave birth to her son in the bath of her home in August 2013. She then drove him to her parents’ home and lowered him into a drain.

Jeremy Evans, prosecuting at Grimsby Crown Court , said Connett’s parents, teachers Stuart and Anne Connett, had suffered problems for a number of years with the drainage for the downstairs toilet.

They called an engineer, Joe Hiatt, who accessed an outdoor drain which was hidden from the main path.

He and Mr Connett discovered the baby boy wrapped in three bin liners.

(Image: Grimsby Teleghraph / BPM Media) (Image: Ross Parry +44 (0) 113 2361842)

Mr and Mrs Connett had no idea they were looking at their dead baby grandson, who had been dumped there by their daughter.

An investigation was immediately launched and tests showed the baby boy had died on August 6 or 7, 2013.

Humberside Police took voluntary DNA samples from the Connett family for elimination. Mr Evans said when she gave her sample, Connett gave police no reason to suspect her involvement.

On May 9 last year, a forensic scientist confirmed that blood on the towel in which the baby had been wrapped matched the DNA profile provided by Connett.

Later that month Connett voluntarily attended a police interview and told officers: “I am the mother of that child.”

Mr Evans told the court that Connett claimed that, after the baby was born in August 2013 in her bathroom, she realised he was not breathing and tried to resuscitate the baby by breathing into his mouth.

A post mortem was unable to establish the cause of death.

She claimed she tried to get help from her parents and drove the baby to Grimsby but "panicked" when she discovered they were out and put him in the drain.

But soon her lies unravelled, and police became suspicious of her version of events.

In a further interview, Connett finally accepted that her pregnancy was not as a result of a rape and admitted she had lied.

Mr Evans said she was “shocked” to discover that she was pregnant and thought that her partner would leave her if he found out.

(Image: Ross Parry +44 (0) 113 2361842)

He said officers interviewing Connett had found her to lack “remorse or concern” about her baby son.

Mitigating, Nigel Sloane, said Connett was “utterly terrified” of going to prison.

He said: "For her, an immediate sentence of imprisonment would be exceptionally hard.”

“This case will finish today. It won’t finish for her. She will have to live with this for the rest of her life.

"A sentence of immediate imprisonment would crush her.”

Jailing her for a year, Judge Jeremy Richardson QC said: "You must be punished. You must go to prison immediately."

Judge Richardson said Connett was the "architect of this appalling, truly appalling scenario".

He said: "She has a history of telling lies."

She sobbed as she was led from the dock to begin her sentence.