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A mum charged with murder almost exactly one year after the death of her infant son at Auckland’s Starship Hospital has instead pleaded guilty to manslaughter.
She was arrested in January last year for the January 2022 killing of her son, who succumbed to a fatal brain injury when he was just under five weeks old.
In light of the guilty pleas, Crown prosecutor Robin McCoubrey sought permission to amend the Crown charge notice from murder to manslaughter. Justice Mathew Downs approved the request and set a sentencing date for July.
Had the defendant been found guilty of murder, she would have most likely faced a life sentence with a minimum term of imprisonment of at least 10 years.
This is standard in all murder cases except on rare occasions when the defence successfully argues such an outcome would be manifestly unjust.
Manslaughter convictions, meanwhile, also have the potential to result in a life sentence, but it is not mandatory and rarely imposed.
Medical staff alerted police after the baby died on January 16, 2022.
Detective Scott Beard acknowledged the delay when the mother was arrested one week before the first anniversary of the child’s death.
A young mother who was charged with murder one year after the death of her 4-week-old son at Starship appears in the High Court at Auckland. Photo / Jason Oxenham
“Any baby homicide is a difficult investigation and the police team have worked hard to get to this stage,” he said at the time.
The defendant also pleaded guilty today to representative charges of assaulting the baby before his death and to attacking another young victim between 2019 and 2021.
At the conclusion of today’s brief arraignment hearing, Justice Downs allowed the defendant to remain on bail until sentencing on “compassionate” grounds, which were not elaborated on during the hearing.
The Crown did not oppose the request, which the judge noted was not usually the case for such serious crimes.
“To be blunt, there is every likelihood you will be imprisoned,” the judge warned of the upcoming sentencing. “It is all but certain you will receive a custodial sentence.”
However, the judge also allowed a report to be prepared to examine her potential suitability for home detention.
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.
