Baby-in-bath murder accused had bipolar, court told

Photo / Herald on Sunday

A woman accused of leaving her baby boy to drown in the bath suffered bipolar disorder and was having a severe depressive episode at the time of his death, the woman's lawyer says.

The 29-year-old woman is on trial in the High Court at Auckland charged with murder for allegedly leaving her 13-month-old baby unattended in the bath while she made her daughter breakfast.

The boy had been in Child Youth and Family (CYF) care until returning to live with his parents two days before his death because he and five-year-old his sister had been left home alone.

In a psychiatric report, which was referred to by the woman's lawyer, John Anderson, psychiatrist Sara Weeks says the woman suffered from type two bipolar disorder resulting from the birth of her son.

The woman's mother also suffered from the disorder so she may have been genetically predisposed to it, the report said.

Mr Anderson also cited evidence from other witnesses who said she was at times angry and aggressive, talked a lot, and was hard to interrupt.

He put to Crown witness Dr Krishna Pillai, a forensic psychiatrist, that these could be indicative of hyper mania - a symptom of the disorder.

But Dr Pillai, who did numerous assessments on the woman, disagreed with this diagnosis. He said she suffered from depression as a result of the many traumatic experiences in her past.

Her marriage was dysfunctional and abusive, her mother and aunt had committed suicide when she was young, her husband faced charges after he assaulted her, and she struggled financially and socially as a new migrant to New Zealand.

But the most significant factor contributing to her depression was that her daughter was sexually abused while in foster care, he said.

This may have been compounded by the fact that she was herself a victim of sexual abuse as a child, he said.

"That was a devastating blow for her," Mr Pillai said.

Mr Anderson questioned whether someone with even a moderate depressive disorder would be able to multi-task and carry out household chores.

The doctor replied that their ability to do this could be quite impaired.

The defence argues that the baby's death was an accident but should the jury find it was a result of gross negligence then it amounted to infanticide, not murder.

- NZPA