Mother attempted suicide after baby drowned, court told

File photo / Martin Sykes

A woman accused of leaving her baby boy to drown in the bath tried to commit suicide after his death, a court was told.

The woman is on trial for murder in the High Court at Auckland but her defence argues that the baby's death last November was an accident.

The woman's lawyer, John Anderson, said if the jury did find the death was the result of gross negligence then it amounted to infanticide, the maximum penalty for which is three years imprisonment.

The court today heard evidence from Sara Weeks, one of three psychiatrists to have taken the stand during the trial and the only one to have diagnosed the woman with bipolar disorder.

"From (her) presentation and her history as she presented it to me, it was my opinion that she had developed a bipolar type two disorder subsequent to the birth of (her son)," Dr Weeks said.

The court also heard evidence from the woman's aunt, a barrister and solicitor working in New Zealand, who said she had frequently received phone calls from her niece seeking emotional support.

"Sometimes she would be quite excited and she would be talking really fast and telling me something and I'd ask what she meant because it didn't make sense. Other times she'd be very quiet," she said.

Prosecuting lawyer Christine Gordon, SC, argued that the woman was not depressed as a result of having children.

She put to the accused woman, who appeared as a witness today, that she felt depressed because of distressing circumstances in her life. These included financial and social problems arising from being a new migrant to New Zealand, an abusive relationship with her husband and that her children had been uplifted from her care by Child Youth and Family.

The woman told the court she had attempted suicide in March this year and had to be admitted to hospital.

"I felt like I was of no use and that I was a burden on everyone," she said.

During her cross-examination this morning, Ms Gordon said the woman had deliberately left her baby in the bath to drown because her life would be much easier with him gone.

"The way to deal with it was to let (your son) go and so you just let him slide away into that bath, didn't you?"

The woman replied: "It's not true I didn't intend for (my son) to drown, I thought that he would play with the fish (toys in the bath) and I thought he was strong enough."

- NZPA