https://www.news.com.au/national/victor ... 8ab0a3be9eA SCHIZOPHRENIC Melbourne woman who slashed her baby’s throat out of fear the world was ending will walk free after completing treatment in a mental health facility.
The woman, who cannot be named for legal reasons, was sentenced to a 30-month community corrections order in the Supreme Court of Victoria on Tuesday after pleading guilty to infanticide.
The court was told the 13-month-old baby girl died on June 5 last year while the woman was in the midst of a post-natal episode at her suburban Reservoir home.
After she was taken into custody, the 28-year-old told a psychiatrist at the Thomas Embling forensic mental health hospital the end of the world was coming.
The woman believed many people would turn into animals, so she had to protect her daughter by killing her.
She made various claims including that her husband was a devil and had hexed her.
The court was previously told the woman spent at least six stints as a psychiatric inpatient in the lead-up to the killing but was discharged 11 days before the death.
During sentencing on Tuesday, Justice Paul Coghlan said the woman, who had come to Australia as a refugee, “suffered from delusional beliefs” with ongoing schizophrenia and suffering a post-natal episode at the time of the infanticide.
He added she was under the stress of raising a young family in the context of “social-economic adversity”.
The woman had been reluctant to take her medication in the past but was now given antipsychotics both orally and by injection.
Justice Coghlan agreed to release the woman on a community corrections order given that her medication situation had changed, she was less resistant to taking it and now had insight into her condition and offending.
He added the woman’s husband and mental health services needed to be aware of the need to act urgently should her condition deteriorate.
The woman will remain at Thomas Embling for several months until a treatment and risk management plan is established.
She will then be handed over to another mental health facility before she is ultimately released back into the community under supervision.
What a load of hogwash. She was under stress from social economic adversity? As are many millions who do not slit their baby's throats.
30 months? There should be mandatory orders that these people are sterilised before they are released. Any mother who does this should NEVER be allowed to breed again. Not ever!!
