Durban - IN A LANDMARK sentence, a Newlands East mother who dumped her newborn baby in a stormwater drain will serve time behind bars.
The unemployed 33- year- old, who cannot be named to protect the identity of the baby and her two other children, was sentenced in the Ntuzuma Magistrate’s Court on Friday to three years’ imprisonment after she pleaded guilty to attempted murder in March.
She will spend an average of six months in prison, as the law allows for her sentence to be converted to house arrest after a few months in jail.
The mother left her baby in a stormwater drain at the corner of Barracuda Road and Herring Circle in Newlands East last February. A passer-by heard the infant cry and alerted authorities. It took four hours for the baby to be rescued.
In her plea, the accused said that her first two children were from different fathers, both of whom did not provide any support. The woman said that to fall pregnant for a third time out of wedlock and from a third man was humiliating.
She said she was financially dependent on her bedridden mother and, given the circumstances, she decided to conceal the birth and dispose of the baby.
Early on February 11, 2019, she gave birth alone in a dark stairway where she lived.
“… while the rest of the family was asleep, I fetched a blanket and a pair of scissors and proceeded outside on to a darkened stairway outside the house where I gave birth.
“After severing the umbilical cord with the scissors and making sure the infant was safe, I noticed I began to bleed profusely.”
She went into the garage, wrapped the baby in a blanket and tried to stop the bleeding. At about 3am she decided to look for a place to leave the baby – a place where she thought the baby would be easily found.
The woman first tried leaving the baby at a school, then a church but she was unable to gain access to either.
Realising the sun was rising, she panicked. While walking, she noticed a stormwater drain at a place she believed to have substantial foot traffic.
“After wrapping the infant in a plastic packet, I lay on my stomach and placed her on a small concrete ledge inside the stormwater drain.”
She left the baby there and went home where she cleaned up.
The woman later joined the crowd of people who gathered to witness the baby’s rescue. Shortly thereafter, she
was arrested for attempted murder but released on bail.
In passing sentence, magistrate Erenskia la Grange said the court was mindful that she pleaded guilty but the facts were that she placed a newborn baby on a ledge and endangered the baby’s life.
La Grange said the accused ought to have known better, having two other children, and that there was no greater bond between a mother and a child.
In aggravation of sentence, Kaystree Ramsamujh, the regional court prosecutor, argued that the accused was not a first-time mother and ought to have known how defenceless the child was.
“She didn’t just place the child on top of the ledge but inside the manhole where the baby could not be seen… the child could have died.”
Ramsamujh said the mother had other options.
“She could have applied for a child support grant. She could have contacted a social worker who could have assisted to place the child in foster care or find adoptive parents. She could have also sought help from social workers to get the biological father of the child involved.
“She had so many options but chose not to utilise them.”
During mitigation of sentence, Jaques Botha, the defence attorney, conceded that while other options were available, she was suffering from preand post-natal depression. Furthermore,
she was remorseful.
Social workers said the accused’s mother had become the foster parent for the three children. The accused has had supervised visits with the baby and this would continue once her time had been served.
In response to the ruling, Lyron Lovedale, the passer-by who found the baby, said he would have preferred the accused was handed a harsher sentence.
“I’m a parent myself and I can never imagine my child having to go through something like that.
“To see a child stuck in a drain, crying and in agony, knowing you can’t get to them, is horrifying. It is a feeling I will never forget. The trauma of that day still stays with me.”
Lovedale said he hoped once she served her time, she would form a relationship with the baby.
He said he hoped to visit the baby soon.
“It would be for my own peace of mind that the baby is okay and is being well taken care of.”
In previous cases, a suspended sentence or correctional supervision were seen to be the maximum penalty for abandoning a baby.
In June last year, a Verulam mother who placed her baby on the roadside in a black rubbish bag for a bin truck to dispose of her child, was handed a five-year suspended sentence and correctional supervision.
POST