'I hope you can move on': Judge's bizarre response to woman convicted of dumping her baby in trash can
AUKLAND, NEW ZEALAND: A woman from New Zealand, diagnosed with amnesia, has been convicted for dumping her newborn son in a trash can. The woman, who cannot be identified for legal reasons, pleaded guilty in November 2022 to concealing the child's body after a housekeeper discovered it.
The woman appeared in court this week to request for a discharge without conviction which has been refused by Judge Stephen Bonnar. Given the tragic conditions of the case, the judge acknowledged that the denial was "not without some degree of regret."
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'It is a tragedy that I hope you will overcome'
“I know that this has been a traumatic ordeal for you,” the judge told the 29-year-old woman, adding, “I hope you are able to put this behind you, move on with your life. This need not determine who you are and what you do. It is a tragedy, but it is a tragedy that I hope you will overcome.”
It was reportedly alleged claimed that the woman hid the body of her newborn on August 4, 2021, the morning she giving birth. The maximum sentence for the crime is two years in prison. According to the NZ Herald, the woman's parents hurried her to a South Auckland hospital around 5.00 am on August 4 because she was experiencing "severe stomach pain and vaginal bleeding."
The woman gave birth in a bathroom close to her room sometime between then and 7.40am. She then dumped the baby in a trash can and cleaned the area before going back to her room. The infant was then discovered by a housekeeper around 9am.
Newborn had congenital pneumonia
The postmortem showed that the child was born prematurely because his gestational age was between 33 and 34 weeks. His lungs, however, showed that he had congenital pneumonia and had been alive at delivery. According to court documents, it's unlikely that this condition would have been fatal if the baby had gotten medical attention.
The woman later denied having ever been sexually active or pregnant. DNA testing, however, proved the child was hers. The woman, however, maintained that the child could not have been hers and denied having any memory of the birth.
The woman suffered from 'dissociative amnesia'
Before she was tried, she spent a year receiving mental health treatment. She was identified as having "dissociative amnesia," which is frequently brought on by a traumatic experience. “Her offending is clearly born out of trauma,” the woman’s lawyer, Emma Priest, told the judge, adding, “She was a victim before she was an offender.”
The defense's repeated claims that the woman's guilt was "negligible" was deemed "offensive" by the court. Although the judge said he had "a huge degree of sympathy" for the woman, he thinks that hiding her identity, as opposed to avoiding punishment, would be more beneficial for her.