Woman faces sentence for killing baby while mentally disturbed by giving birth

A woman will be sentenced later for killing her newborn baby while she was mentally disturbed by the effects of childbirth.

Gintare Suminaite, 30, was at home alone in the bathroom when she gave birth to a daughter, and killed her on April 5 2016.

Last month, the defendant, of Aldwick Road, Bognor Regis, West Sussex, denied murder but admitted infanticide during a hearing at the Old Bailey.

The details of the charge stated that she caused the death of "baby Suminaite" by "compression of the neck with a ligature or by manual compression of the neck".

At the time the balance of her mind was disturbed "by reason of your not having fully recovered from the effects of giving birth to the child or by reason of the effect of lactation consequent on the birth of the child", the charge stated.

Prosecutor Ed Brown QC accepted the plea in light of various reports and asked for the murder charge to lie on file.

He said: "The events go back to April 5 of this year when it is alleged that the defendant, having very shortly before given birth to her child, then killed the newly born.

"Over the weeks and months leading up until today the Crown have received a body of evidence both from physicians as well as from psychiatric experts."

In light of all the evidence, including on the effect of loss of blood following birth, the Crown had carried out a "wide ranging review" of the "sensitive case", he said.

As a result, it had reconsidered the murder charge and concluded that a guilty plea to infanticide is "acceptable and covers the true culpability and criminality of this case", Mr Brown said.

Mr Justice Nicol will sentence Suminaite at the Old Bailey later.

The senior judge has said that "all sentencing options remain open" in what was an "out of the ordinary" case.

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