By Mark Russell
A mother who killed her baby daughter and seriously injured the two-month-old's twin sister while in the grip of postnatal depression has walked free from court.
The mother, 39, told police she felt like she was on a rollercoaster and would go into a daze when she repeatedly attacked the baby girls after they were brought home following their birth by caesarean at the Royal Women's Hospital on February 27, 2012.
Crown prosecutor Ray Elston, SC, said the mother admitted to police that maybe she "shook them too hard" but could not remember exactly when or how often.
She told police she was a bad mother and "you've got to help me, you've got to help me".
The mother, who cannot be named, pleaded guilty to one count of infanticide and one count of recklessly causing serious injury.
The baby girl who survived suffered permanent brain damage, has cerebral palsy and cannot walk or talk.
Sentencing the mother to a one-year community service order on Friday, Supreme Court Justice Bernard Bongiorno said cases of infanticide were fortunately rare.
Justice Bongiorno said no punishment he could hand down to the mother would be as severe as the punishment of having to live with what she had done to the twin girls.
The moral culpability of the mother, who sat shaking in the dock and rocking backwards and forwards while the father wiped away tears just two rows in front of her, was either non-existent or to such a low degree as to be negligible, the judge said.
Defence barrister Peter Morrissey, SC, had told the court the mother was "very much a broken woman", struggling to find a reason to live.
"She is a person very much to be pitied," he said.
The mother had been over the moon with happiness when told she was going to have twins and was now tormented and afflicted by grief and guilt. She visited the cemetery daily.
Mr Elston said there had been four previous cases of infanticide in Victoria but in each case those responsible had received community corrections orders.
The prosecutor said the girls had been taken home three days after their birth by their parents, who also had a two-year-old boy.
In the eight weeks before the girl's death, the twins, who had colic which made them difficult to manage, were taken several times to see a nurse who noticed bruising on both infants.
But the bruises were explained away by their mother who suggested the girls "must be bashing each other" and they were like "Houdini" the way they could get out of their baby wraps, Mr Elston said.
On April 25, their father had been responsible for the twins overnight and fed them at about 11pm before putting them to bed. He was sleeping in their room while the mother slept in the main bedroom before one of the girls started making noises at about 2am.
The father got up to check on her and found she was pale and limp.
He removed her from her crib and realised she was still and had stopped breathing.
The girl was taken to the Royal Children's Hospital where it was discovered she had suffered massive skull fractures and subdural hemorrhaging (bleeding to the brain).
The girl's twin was then examined and found to have the same symptoms and injuries as her sister. She had "multiple skull fractures, subdural bleeds, [a] broken collar bone, fractured ribs, bruising and other injuries", according to police.
An autopsy on the dead girl revealed she had both old and fresh bone fractures.
When the mother was interviewed by police, she said the girls were crying all the time and she didn't feel worthy of being a mum because she couldn't help them and they were always in pain.
The mother would rock them to try to calm them but could not remember doing anything else to them. She told police she was worried about postnatal depression.
"It could make me flip," she said.
The girls' father, in his victim impact statement, said he was angry at being deceived and lied to by his wife.
His only happiness in life now was his two children.