A mother who left her newborn son in a storm water drain in Quakers Hill 2014 is due to be released on parole within weeks.
The woman, aged 32, pleaded guilty to abandoning a child and recklessly causing grievous bodily harm and was sentenced to a maximum of three years. Her original charge of attempted murder was downgraded.
The woman, who the court found to have the “intellectual capacity of a primary school-aged child”, had hid her pregnancy from her family after her partner left her. She checked herself out of hospital just 36 hours after welcoming the healthy boy, and travelled by train to Quakers Hill.
Still wrapped in his hospital blanket, she pushed her newborn baby down a small hole in a concrete drain 500m from her home, reports the Daily Mail. She told the court that she returned on two occasions and concluded that the he had died.
The baby boy was miraculously found alive five days after he was left in at the bottom of the 2.4m-deep drain.
David Otte and his 18-year-old daughter Hayley were cycling near the drain when they heard screaming. It took six men to remove the concrete slab covering the drain.
“I’ve got two kids of my own, so I know what a screaming baby sounds like”, said Mr Otter. “It was so intense, you couldn’t not tell it was a baby”.
Having already served the minimum sentence, the woman will be eligible for parole next month, reports the Daily Telegraph.
“The perfect storm of factors which led to this shocking crime were both largely out of the control of the offender and are extremely unlikely to be repeated,” Judge Colefax said during the hearing.
The baby boy is now 20-months-old and is living with a foster family.
