Mum who strangled newborn baby to death with knickers after giving birth WALKS FREE
Lithuanian Gintare Suminaite, 30, throttled the baby girl, the product of a secret affair, at the bedsit she shared with her boyfriend.
Suminaite denied murder, but admitted infantcide claiming she had become "mentally disturbed" by the ordeal of giving birth.
The Old Bailey heard how she wrapped her hands around the child's throat and squeezed "as hard as I could" before holding her under the shower in a bid to drown her.
Suminaite then cut the umbilical cord with a razor blade before tying her underwear around the infant's neck and placing her in a baby bath on 5 April last year.
Prosecutor Ed Brown QC told how Suminaite kept her pregnancy hidden from her partner, who she has another child with. He had no idea she was expecting until she confessed she had "done something bad" after falling pregnant during an affair with fellow Lithuanian Arturas Vencius, 32.
But the relationship broke down and Suminaite began an affair with Mr Arturas in around February or March 2015. He knew he was the father of the child when Suminaite fell pregnant and hoped she would travel back to Lithuania with her.
But she made no registration of her pregnancy, attended no ante-natal classes and hid it from her partner. Her partner had been working a night shift and awoke at around 2.40pm to hear the shower on.
Suminaite eventually allowed him into the bathroom, where he found her naked and covered in blood next to a baby bath.
"All the evidence shows that the child had been dead for some little time.." Suminaite continued to lose blood throughout the evening, but refused to see a doctor until she turned yellow and her partner insisted she had to go to hospital.
She then confessed she had been pregnant with Mr Vencius' child. An ambulance was called at 5.42am on 6 April last year and Suminaite was rushed to hospital, but it was not until 9am that medics returned to the flat, where they found the child's lifeless body in the baby bath under a blanket and wet towels.
Suminaite told police she "most likely" intended to kill her baby, but said she did not know why. She pleaded guilty to a charge of infanticide on 21 December last year.
Sentencing, Mr Justice Nicol said: “The unlawful homicide of anyone is a tragedy, especially in the case when the victim is so young, even more so that is the case when the child dies at the hands of her mother.
“However, your own circumstances were tragic in themselves and that is reflected in the nature of the offence to which you have pleaded guilty.
“You were overwhelmed by the stress of your situation and in a state of partial denial during the pregnancy.
“At the time of giving birth your were in a state of extreme anxiety and panic amounting to a temporary impairment of the balance of your mind.”
"The courts recognise in circumstances such as this, where there is no underlying psychiatric illness, where there is a low risk of re-offending or causing harm, that what might otherwise be thought of as lenient is the appropriate course, namely a non-custodial sentence."
The court heard the father of her child has broken off contact with her.
