Rachel Tunstill has been convicted of murdering her newborn baby for a second time, after her original conviction was quashed on appeal

A mother was today convicted for a second time of murdering her newborn baby with a pair of scissors, after her initial conviction was quashed on appeal.

Rachel Tunstill, 28, killed tiny Mia Kelly shortly after giving birth in the bathroom of her flat in Burnley in January 2017.

Her child's body was then put into a plastic carrier bag and dumped in a kitchen bin, before Tunstill watched TV with her partner.

She was originally convicted of Mia's murder in June 2017, but an appeal judge later ruled that the jury should have been offered a verdict of infanticide to consider.

Following a retrial of the case over the last seven weeks, Tunstill was again convicted of murder and now faces a life sentence when she comes back before a judge tomorrow.

Tunstill gave birth to baby Mia Kelly on January 14 2017 in the bathroom of her home in Burnley.

She had told her partner that she was suffering a miscarriage and despite him offering to get her medical help, she declined and said she would handle the situation herself.

Mia Kelly's body was dumped in a bin at the couple's home in Burnley (pictured)

Each time he went to check on her, she insisted that she didn't need any assistance, asking only for a pair of scissors.

Investigators say she used the scissors to repeatedly stab the infant, inflicting 15 wounds to the newborn baby.

Police who attended found baby Mia's body in the kitchen bin, hidden in a bag.

Tunstill and the baby's 30-year-old father, were both arrested on suspicion of murder but he was subsequently released without charge.

What is infanticide? Under the Infanticide Act 1938, women can be found to have committed infanticide rather than murder under the certain circumstances. The law describes the crime as: 'Where a woman by any wilful act or omission causes the death of her child being a child under the age of twelve months, but at the time of the act or omission the balance of her mind was disturbed by reason of her not having fully recovered from the effect of giving birth to the child or by reason of the effect of lactation consequent upon the birth of the child.' Infanticide cases in the UK are very rare. One recent case was of Natasha Sultan, a young mother from Hull, was given a three-year supervision order in 2015 for killing her five-week-old daughter in an 'explosion of violence'. The judge said she was an 'utterly broken woman' and 'the burden [of her actions] would never be lifted'. Advertisement

Police said today that he and Mia's wider family continue to be supported by specially trained officers.

Following Tunstill's conviction today, Lancashire police's Det Ch Insp Gareth Willis said: 'This was a truly horrifying and callous killing of a defenceless newborn baby by her mother; her source of life and who should have been her source of love.

'What is worse is that a totally innocent man, still coming to terms with the realisation he had a daughter and that she had died, was questioned by police because Tunstill lied about the fact she had killed the baby stating that it was stillborn. She has still never admitted why she killed Mia.

'My thoughts remain with Mia's father and her family who have not only had to deal with their loss, they have also had to sit through two trials, listening in great detail to what she was subjected to.

'They have conducted themselves with great dignity and I hope this now gives them some comfort that the legal side of things have come to an end.'