A Dunedin mother has been sentenced to intensive supervision and community work for causing the death of her 22-month-old twin daughter, who choked to death after being assaulted earlier this year.
The details of the incident were made public for the first time yesterday when the 27-year-old woman was sentenced in the High Court at Dunedin.
She was originally charged with murder, but that charge was withdrawn and replaced with the comparatively rare charge of infanticide, after two experienced psychiatrists found the balance of the woman's mind was disturbed by ongoing depression at the time she caused the child's death.
She pleaded guilty.
The dark-haired, slightly built woman was in tears as Justice Panckhurst recounted the events of May 26 when her two oldest children were at school and she was at home with her youngest son and the "unwanted" and prematurely born twin girls.
At the time, she was effectively a solo parent and "to put it mildly, wasn't coping", the judge said.
Because the twins spent seven weeks in the neonatal intensive care unit after their birth at 33 weeks, there were problems bonding, in particular with the youngest.
The woman's depression and low mood grew, she became progressively more overwhelmed with the demands of caring for the five children and her irritability and anger focused on the younger twin.
On May 26, that child was unsettled and crying incessantly.
The woman lost control and seized her, banging her head against a couch several times, causing more and louder crying.
She choked the child for about 30 seconds, causing her to stop breathing. When the telephone rang, she answered it. The child was breathing again but also crying.
The woman threw her on a bed and covered her with a blanket leaving her for quite some time and when she checked, the child was limp and unresponsive.
She was dead when the paramedics arrived.
A postmortem examination indicated the child died by regurgitation of food after the assault - she choked to death.
"Disturbingly" the examination also revealed evidence of past injuries including a fractured rib and a fractured vertebra in the lower back area, the judge said.
The woman openly acknowledged she had lost control and mistreated the child without thought for the consequences.
Justice Panckhurst said it was "another awful case of child abuse leading to a child's death".
And he said the consistent message of recent television campaigns and high-profile court cases was that child abuse was something that could not be tolerated in the community.
Yet the woman was charged with infanticide.
Some people would no doubt perceive her treatment by the court as "sympathetic and inconsistent with other cases", the judge said.
Section 178 of the Crimes Act provided for a charge of infanticide where a mother caused the death of a child under 10 in a manner amounting to culpable homicide while the balance of her mind was disturbed by a disorder resulting from childbirth or lactation, to the extent she could not be held fully responsible for her actions.
The Crown had accepted the psychiatrists' finding that the balance of the woman's mind was disturbed -"and so do I", Justice Panckhurst said.
He found it was "a true case of infanticide" where a merciful sentencing response was appropriate.
He agreed with counsel Anne Stevens that intensive supervision was the appropriate sentence.
He imposed a two-year term, with four special conditions relating to assessment and treatment for alcohol abuse and psychological issues and no unsupervised contact with children under 12.
And he also sentenced the woman to 100 hours' community work as he considered it was appropriate she should return something to the community.
On the question of permanent name suppression, Crown counsel Robin Bates argued that publication was in the public interest, especially if there was to be contact with children in the future.
Mrs Stevens said the name should remain suppressed for the woman's welfare and rehabilitation but, more importantly, for the protection of four innocent children so they would not be identified and branded.
While there were merits in both points of view, Justice Panckhurst said he did not think the woman posed an ongoing risk to other children, and he ordered final suppression.
