A mother who suffocated her newborn baby and left his body in woodland in a secret she kept for 25 years has avoided jail.
Joanne Sharkey pleaded guilty to manslaughter by diminished responsibility over the death of the baby boy, who was named Callum by police investigating his death in 1998.
The 55-year-old was found by police 25 years later when her other son was arrested and had a DNA sample taken, a court heard.
Her baby’s body was found by a dog walker close to Gulliver’s World theme park in Warrington, Cheshire, on 14 March, 1998.
On Friday, Sharkey was given a two-year suspended prison sentence at Liverpool Crown Court.
The court heard that when she killed the baby, Sharkey was suffering from post-natal depression after the birth of her first son in 1996.
She told police she kept her pregnancy a secret and when the baby was born in the bathroom of her house in Croxteth, Liverpool, she heard him starting to make a noise and covered his nose and mouth “to make him quiet”.
The court heard Sharkey was a married 28-year-old housing benefit officer at West Lancashire Council when Callum was born – but she never told her husband of his birth.
In deciding against an immediate custodial sentence for the defendant, Mrs Justice Eady said: “This is a difficult case where I accept that your offending is very largely explained by the mental disorder you suffered.”
The judge also said: “I am clear this is not a case where you had a sense of getting away with it. You were isolated with this terrible tragic knowledge for a quarter of a century. You have furthermore had these proceedings hanging over you.”
She concluded: “I am satisfied that this very sad case calls for compassion. No useful purpose will be achieved by immediate imprisonment.”
Prosecution barrister Jonas Hankin KC previously said psychiatrists agreed Sharkey was “fearful of becoming a mother to another child” and developed a depressive illness which “substantially impaired [her] ability to form rational judgment and exercise self-control”.
Mr Hankin told the court: “It’s apparent Mrs Sharkey soon found the combination of a full-time job and motherhood challenging, and she has since been diagnosed as suffering from post-natal depression during that period.
“She told a work colleague and friend Amanda Harper she didn’t want any more children after Matthew. Nevertheless she became pregnant in the summer of 1997. She did not tell her husband.”
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