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A student who gave birth in a toilet and then threw the dead baby out of window has been sentenced to supervision and community service.
Patricia Golovale-Siaosi, 22, who had her interim name suppression lifted today, pleaded guilty to infanticide in June.
Her sentencing was adjourned until today to enable her to retain her scholarship and complete her degree at Otago University.
In the High Court in Dunedin, Justice John Hansen sentenced Golovale-Siaosi to 12 months' supervision, 130 hours' community work, and ordered her to undertake a psychiatric assessment and counselling.
Justice Hansen said an element of punishment was the publishing of her name.
Infanticide is an uncommon charge that carries a presumption of the woman being so disturbed by childbirth that she cannot be held fully responsible for her actions.
Golovale-Siaosi gave birth to a 3.3kg baby girl in a toilet at Studholme Hall on May 20, 2006.
She had not told anyone she was pregnant because she did not want to lose her scholarship and was ashamed to be unwed and pregnant, Dunedin District Court was told late last year.
She heard a splash when the baby was born into the toilet and she began fainting. But she did not tell her sister, who was waiting outside, to help the baby out of the toilet.
Golovale-Siaosi did not rescue the infant because her sister was there and she did not want her to know about the birth, the court was told.
She returned alone to the bathroom later to clean up and, placing the apparently dead baby and her placenta into a plastic bag, threw them out a window into the garden below, before collapsing in the hallway.
- NZPA
