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Mother who suffocated her newborn daughter will not serve jail time

Apr 17, 2015

By Dave Andrusko

Claudia Martins

Claudia Martins

A British judge, citing a “momentary abnormality of mental functioning,” set free Claudia Martins, the mother of five, who suffocated her newborn daughter by stuffing toilet paper down her throat and then hiding her body in a suitcase.

Martins, 33, had been convicted of manslaughter in the death last September of her baby, estimated to be about 36-36 weeks, and had been in jail the last eight months.

“Justice Teare, sentencing Martins at Winchester Crown Court, Hampshire, to a two year community order with supervision requirements, described her actions as ‘wholly out of character,’” The Daily Mail reported.

“A court heard she was suffering from a condition known as a ‘pathological denial of pregnancy’ which continued after giving birth to a baby girl,” the Daily Mail’s Julian Robinson reported.

According to Robinson, on September 12, Martins gave birth to her baby girl in the bath and then killed her. She had managed to keep her pregnancy a secret from her family.

Earlier the evening, “she had complained to her family of a bad back but an ambulance was called when it was noticed she had wrapped herself in blood-soaked towels,” Robinson reported. “Before she left her sister’s home in Knowle, Bristol, she was seen rearranging items in a suitcase and placed items on top.”

It had been Martins’ intention to wrap her baby’s body a plastic bag and towels, but that evasion was thwarted “when paramedics arrived and whisked her off to hospital.”

Three days later, Robinson wrote, “her sister, Vilma, complained of a smell coming from Martins’ bedroom and traced it to the suitcase, Bristol Crown Court heard. When she opened it she found towels soaked in blood and the body of a baby girl, which was between 35 and 36 weeks gestation.”

Police arrested Martins on September 15, the day she was discharged from the hospital.

Martins told the police the baby suddenly came out while she was in the bath. “She said she caught the baby but it wasn’t crying or moving.” Robinson reported.

When Martins killed her baby daughter, she was living with eight other people, including Vilma. That can no longer be the case “because social services will take her [Martins] four children away into care if they live under the same roof,” Robinson reported.

Categories: Crime