Mother who abandoned baby in Quakers Hill stormwater drain sentenced to 3.5 years in jail

IN the days after dumping her day-old baby boy in a drain, an ­intellectually impaired woman ­returned to the scene several times but, when she couldn’t hear crying, assumed he had died, a court heard yesterday.

The scene a day after a newborn baby boy was found by cyclists in a stormwater drain in Quakers Hill. Picture: Melvyn Knipe

IN the days after dumping her day-old baby boy in a drain, an ­intellectually impaired woman ­returned to the scene several times but, when she couldn’t hear crying, assumed he had died, a court heard yesterday.

The 32-year-old woman was sentenced in Parramatta District court to a maximum of three years and six months in jail after pleading guilty to abandoning a child and recklessly causing grievous bodily harm by leaving the baby at the bottom of the 2.4m-deep drain in 2014.

With a minimum term of one year and nine months and time ­already spent in custody, the woman will be eligible for release on parole next month.

The baby boy, who cannot be identified, was found in the stormwater drain in 2014.

The baby was found alive five days after he was left in the drain beside the M2 at Quakers Hill, after passing cyclists heard him cry.

The baby was malnourished and dehydrated but was now meeting milestones, according to his foster carers.

The court heard the mother, who cannot be named, has the cognitive reasoning capacity of a middle primary school student and lived a sheltered life with a deeply religious Samoan family.

She become pregnant after only a few sexual encounters with her first partner, who later left her.

Despite a Blacktown Hospital staff member expressing concerns that something was wrong with the woman, she was discharged the day after giving birth without the knowledge of her family.

She caught a train to Quakers Hill with the baby and “sat with him in the park for a while” she later told police.

“Then I just saw the drain. Then I just put baby in there,” she said, telling officers she heard nothing after the boy had fallen to the bottom because he was ­“sleeping”.

The court heard she returned the following day and then two days after that and heard nothing on both occasions.

“She concluded her baby had died,” Judge Andrew Colefax said.

Cyclist David Otte and daughter Hayley helped rescue the baby from the drain. Picture: Cameron Richardson

Judge Colefax said she had no criminal history and her prospects of rehabilitation were high. “The perfect storm of factors which led to this shocking crime were both largely out of the control of the offender and are extremely unlikely to be repeated,” he said.

The court heard the woman had at first seemed happy about the pregnancy but became depressed when her boyfriend told her he had a new girlfriend and that he’d heard someone else had fathered the child.

She was concerned that her family would disapprove of the man being Fijian.

The drain where the boy was found. Picture: Melvyn Knipe