Student threw newborn out window, court told

A 20-year-old student gave birth to a baby girl in a Dunedin university hostel toilet then threw the body out a window, a court heard yesterday.

The second-year overseas student, who has name suppression, is accused of causing the death of her baby by failing to supply the necessaries of life.

Crown counsel Marie Grills told yesterday's deposition hearing at Dunedin District Court that a pathologist would give evidence the full-term, or near full-term, baby girl was born healthy and had begun moving.

She was delivered directly into a toilet bowl and later placed in a plastic bag with the placenta, Mrs Grills said.

The accused then dropped the bag out the window into the garden below and her sister helped her back to bed.

She was taken to hospital during the afternoon of May 20. There, she denied having had a baby, maintaining she was having a heavy period.

After tests confirmed she had been pregnant, she admitted giving birth and said she had flushed the baby down the toilet. But police recovered the plastic bag containing the baby's body later the same night, Mrs Grills told the court.

The accused's 19-year-old sister said early in the morning, she was woken by her sister crying and complaining of a stomach ache. The pair went to the bathroom and her sister was sitting on the toilet, not saying anything, "just crying" and weak, as if in pain.

She did not know what her sister was doing - "I was suspecting she might go and have a baby." The witness later cleaned the bathroom, which had blood all over the floor.

The hearing continues today.

- OTAGO DAILY TIMES