Judge says girl suffered a rare mental disorder at the time of the birth and that ‘the loss of a child is a sentence in and of itself’

This article is more than 4 years old

This article is more than 4 years old

A Melbourne teenager who went into shock when she realised she was giving birth, then killed her baby and hid the body under a tree, has avoided jail.

The 19-year-old was sentenced to a one-year community corrections order in the Victorian supreme court on Wednesday after pleading guilty to infanticide.

The woman, who cannot be named, realised she was pregnant only when she felt her baby crown in a bedroom of her father’s house a few hours after playing a game of basketball in February last year.



Justice John Rush said she suffered a rare but recognised mental disorder called pregnancy denial, and had been extremely traumatised by the labour and subsequent death of her daughter.

Her shock had significantly impaired her ability to respond to the infant’s distress.

“The loss of a child is a life sentence in and of itself,” Rush said.

The baby girl was moving and made a noise after she was born in early on 26 February last year.

The mother held her hand over the baby’s mouth for 30 to 60 seconds, believing she would be able to breathe. Rush accepted her mental functioning was impaired at the time.

After the baby died, the mother, then 18, put the little girl’s body in a Cotton On bag and went to sleep. She later hid the body under a tree.





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The woman told her sister about the baby’s death eight days later and they reported it to police. An autopsy could not ascertain the cause of death.



The mother was excused from court for the sentencing remarks. Her plea hearing last week was interrupted several times when she became distressed hearing the details of her crime.



Rush said she had good prospects for rehabilitation and her remorse was “palpable”.



Infanticide is defined in Victorian law as the crime of a mother killing her baby while the balance of her mind is disturbed after childbirth.



The maximum penalty is five years in jail.

