A prison sentence at home for a mother who has killed her new-born

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Claudia Berthiaume

Thursday, march 1, 2018 10:53

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Thursday, march 1, 2018 10:53

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A judge agreed this morning that in Montreal, having killed his new-born serving a prison sentence at home, especially because she is a “devoted mother” to her three other children.

“Madame is a woman, gentle, patient ; a mother competent and committed,” stressed the judge Linda Despots, citing a report prepared by a probation officer to the sentence of the woman 43 years of age.

The magistrate thus row at the suggestion of the Crown and defence to impose a sentence of 20 months of detention at home for this mother of a family, who resides in the neighborhood of Côte-des-Neiges-Notre-Dame-de-Grace, Montreal.

Me France Duhamel and Joseph La Leggia had argued that sending the accused in a penal institution would deprive her three other children to their mother, which was not desirable.

Infanticide

First accused of murder, the mother of a family has pleaded guilty to a chief of infanticide last November. This implies that its mind when the crime was “unbalanced” by its recent confinement, without, however, suffers from a psychiatric problem.

For the first half of the sentence, the lady will have to stay in it 24 hours on 24, except to go to work, school, or church.

During the 10 subsequent months, she will have to submit to a curfew.

This will be followed by a probation of three years, with a follow-up tight.

Pregnancy Tests

In addition, during the five years that it will be followed by the justice, the mother of 43 years old will have to take a pregnancy test regularly. This is a first in Canada, according to the defense.

“Allow that Madame to provide the evidence of [these tests] to his probation officer every six months would have to reassure the company,” said the judge Despots, at the palais de justice of Montreal.

This is to avoid that the lady is pregnant again without knowing it, as it happened on 12 July 2016.

On this day, the mother of this family was found by her husband bleeding in her bath. She had just given birth to a daughter, and would have awkwardly cut the umbilical cord with long scissors.

The arrival of the paramedics, the baby, who also had a head injury, was in a plastic bag closed by two nodes. The new-born died a few days later, result of this asphyxiation.

I was diagnosed with a denial of pregnancy to the accused, and then a dissociative amnesia.

“Today, my client is doing much better, she is a completely different woman,” said Me The Leggia out of the court room.