Mum who dumped newborn’s body in bin at Auckland’s Albert Park during work trip granted permanent name suppression

“There is a strong public interest in what happened, and room for discussion on what lessons can be learnt, and how to prevent the same happening again,” Judge Kathryn Maxwell said after ordering a conviction and discharge.

“But I do not see any public interest in naming [her]. It serves no purpose. It would inevitably do more harm than good.”

The woman had told police she suspected she was pregnant before arriving in New Zealand several days before the birth but was unsure until labour began. She blacked out moments after giving birth to the baby boy, she said.

“When she became conscious again, she felt around for the baby with her feet and located him deceased,” court documents state.

The woman later told a psychologist she held the baby to her chest before showering, changing and letting the water out of the tub.

“She sat next to the tub crying,” the judge said, citing the woman’s account. “She felt panic rising. She placed a cloth over the baby’s body. She thought about calling people but was scared about what might happen.”

When she spoke to her partner that same day, she didn’t reveal what had happened.

After the woman awoke the next day, she attended to work commitments.

After her last meeting of the day, she returned to the bathtub and decided to put her son’s body inside a black leather work bag.

She walked a short distance from her accommodation to Albert Park, which adjoins the University of Auckland and Auckland University of Technology in the city centre.

She intentionally placed the body in a rubbish bin before returning to her hotel, court documents state.

“She said when she first went outside with the baby, she did not have a plan as to what she was going to do with him,” the summary of facts states.

“She kept thinking about retrieving her bag,” the judge said today, again citing the psychological report. “She did not.”

The scene was discovered about 7am the next day when an Auckland Council rubbish contractor “noted the weight of the bag when emptying the bin and looked inside”.

The worker had been allowed to submit a victim impact statement but declined, wishing to put the incident out of his memory, the court was told today.

In the investigation that followed the discovery, neither police nor a pathologist were able to say with certainty the cause of the baby’s death.

The woman was charged less than 24 hours later with concealing the dead body of a child, a charge that carries a sentence of up to two years’ imprisonment. She was never charged with homicide.

Crown prosecutor Claire Paterson argued against the woman’s requests for permanent name suppression and a discharge without conviction.

“It’s an inherently serious offence and there’s a high public interest in deterrence of offending of this type,” she told the judge, describing the handling of the baby’s remains as “callous and undignified”.

Paterson argued the most appropriate sentence would be a conviction paired with community supervision. The judge, however, said supervision would be meaningless if the woman returned overseas.

Defence lawyer Holly Aitken said her client had “already paid the greatest price of all”, having lost her child. The rest of her life, the lawyer said, would be punctuated by shame, stigma, regret and remorse.

“She remains fragile and tentative,” the lawyer said, adding that convicting and naming her client could set back the progress she’s made over the past year through counselling.

Aitken described the woman’s “harrowing decision to abandon her baby” as a traumatic stress response to the unexpected circumstances.

It was out of character for the woman, who had no prior convictions and has been assessed as a low risk of reoffending, she argued.

Naming the woman would also cause undue harm to the defendant’s older child, who has lost sleep over the past year and has described “a sense of dread of his mother’s identity becoming public”, Aitken told the judge.

The judge agreed she had to take the wishes of the woman’s immediate family into account, as they are victims who have lost a son and brother.

She also determined she had to take into account the customs and traditions of the woman’s home country, where she said it is more likely than in New Zealand that her entire family would be ostracised.

“Whilst not wanting to belabour the point, the court does make the observation that [her] actions would also be directly at odds with most, if not all cultures and beliefs,” Judge Maxwell said.

“The offending would be regarded by most New Zealanders as distressing.”

The judge said her impression was not that the woman was “incapable of seeking assistance” after her son’s death so much as “reluctant” to do so.

“The circumstances were such that, having to acknowledge a baby, one out of wedlock, would likely have been difficult for her and her family,” she said. “[Her] actions can perhaps be contrasted with a younger person with limited life experience, where concealment might otherwise be viewed as rash and impulsive.”

Nevertheless, Judge Maxwell said, she hesitated to follow the Crown’s lead in characterising the woman’s conduct as “callous”.

“‘Panicked’ may be more apt,” she said.

Judge Maxwell declined the defence’s request for a discharge without conviction but said no additional punishment was needed.

She said the woman had already been kept away from her home for a year, during which she started counselling for the first time in her life and completed 62 hours of community work with the SPCA.

“The court is mindful of the very real need to deter this kind of offending,” she said. “A conviction acts as a deterrent.”

The child received a small memorial service at Albert Park’s central fountain several weeks after his death. The event, attended mostly by police and council workers, included three karakia and a waiata led by a representative of Ngāti Whātua Ōrākei.

Craig Kapitan is an Auckland-based journalist covering courts and justice. He joined the Herald in 2021 and has reported on courts since 2002 in three newsrooms in the US and New Zealand.