A mother, who drowned her own baby after she became wrongly “obsessed” she had dwarfism, has pleaded guilty to manslaughter.
On November 18, 2010, the six-month-old baby girl was discovered floating in the bathtub of her home in North Strathfield, inner-west Sydney, Australia.
Her mother was previously charged with murder but the Supreme Court of NSW accepted her manslaughter plea due to “an abnormality of the mind” today.
Since then, the 41-year-old has been in various psychiatric institutions and in 2014 was deemed unfit to face trial.
A special hearing has now been held under the Mental Health Act, when Justice Geoffrey Bellew found, on the limited evidence available, that she had intentionally drowned her baby.
He found she had resented the baby girl, was “obsessed with perfection” and became increasingly anxious she was “seeing the signs of a dwarf”.
She refused to accept medical assurances that her daughter was “normal”.
The judge imposed a limiting term, meaning the maximum amount of time she could be detained in a mental health facility, of 20 years.
Last July, another judge granted her bail, on condition she reside in a mental health facility, after experts agreed she was fit to face trial.
She was taking appropriate medication and her mental condition had significantly improved.
Justice Robert Beech-Jones adjourned the case to next Friday to enable the parties to prepare an agreed statement of facts before her sentencing hearing takes place on a future date.
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