A mother who admitted suffocating her 15-month-old daughter before throwing her body into a suburban Melbourne creek will be released from custody.
Sofina Nikat, 24, was on Thursday sentenced to a 12-month community correction order after earlier pleading guilty to infanticide over the April 2016 death of her daughter Sanaya Sahib.
"In the unusual circumstances you have already served 529 days of pre-sentence custody," Victorian Supreme Court Justice Lex Lasry said.
Nikat served 529 days of pre-sentence detention after being charged over Sanaya's death, before she was released on bail in September, reports news.com.au.
The maximum prison sentence for infanticide in Victoria is five years. Prosecutors had pushed for a jail term, but her lawyers said a non-custodial community corrections order was appropriate given Nikat's mental state. Victorian Supreme Court Justice Lex Lasry said he accepted evidence from a psychiatrist that Nikat was depressed when she suffocated Sanaya and threw her body into Darebin Creek.