A mother has admitted to killing her newborn baby by “throwing them over the balcony” of their flat. Sarah Jayne Barron, 34, has pleaded guilty to infanticide, which also acts as a partial defence against the murder charge she previously denied. The case will now not go to trial and has been adjourned for the preparation of psychiatric reports. The maximum penalty for infanticide is life imprisonment, but usually a non-custodial sentence is the outcome. 

A police investigation was opened in 2020 after Barron’s newborn’s body was discovered in a private garden in Weston-super-Mare, Somerset, on December 12 of that year.

Barron had previously denied a charge of murder but admitted the plea of infanticide when she was re-arraigned. In cases where infanticide is claimed by a defendant, the burden of proof for prosecutors who have alleged murder is to disprove the claim of infanticide beyond a reasonable doubt. 

The court was told the offence was committed on December 4 2020 when Barron “caused the death of your child under 12 months by wilful act by throwing them over the balcony of your flat at the time you had not fully recovered from the effects of giving birth”.

Anna Vigars KC, prosecuting, told the court the plea was acceptable to the Crown and a trial will not be necessary. Charles Row KC, defending Barron, asked for the case to be adjourned to prepare the psychiatric reports.

Barron, whose current address was withheld by the court, was released on conditional bail until she is sentenced on July 14.

Judge Peter Blair KC, the Recorder of Bristol, told the defendant: “The prosecution has indicated today your guilty plea to the alternative charge of infanticide is acceptable and therefore the trial listed for July 17 is to be vacated, as is the further case management hearing on June 15.

“The sentencing exercise will now be undertaken on July 14 and until then you will be on bail with conditions.

“The fact you have pleaded guilty will enable the judge to give you credit for your guilty plea and it will be for the judge to decide how much you will be given.

“Having read what I have read, I suspect considerable credit will be afforded.”

While the maximum penalty for infanticide, defined as the deliberate killing of a baby under one years old by their own mother, is life imprisonment, it is rare for a woman facing this charge to receive any form of custodial sentence. 

A study published in the British Journal of Midwifery in 2015 said that in the previous 10 years not one of the 59 cases of infanticide had resulted in a custodial sentence.

The charge, enacted into law by the Infanticide Act 1922, carries with it the defence that the woman in question suffered from a disturbed balance of mind as a result of giving birth when she committed the killing. 

It acts as a significant partial defence to murder, so long as the incident happened within a year of childbirth. 

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Between 1995 and 2002, there were 298 cases of infanticide in England and Wales, according to a study published in the Journal of Interpersonal Violence.

The annual rate of infant homicide – 45 per million – has remained reasonably constant since the Homicide Act 1957.

In England and Wales there were 2,226 infant deaths, aged under one year, in 2020, according to the Office of National Statistics. 

While the infant mortality rate has generally declined in the last four decades, it has remained relatively stable since 2014. 

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