The mother who suffered her baby and left her body in the woods in secret held for 25 years avoid prison
A mother who suffocated his newborn Child AND He downloaded his body into a bin bag in a forest In a secret that he held for 25 years he avoided prison.
Joanne Sharkey declared himself guilty of manslaughter with a reduced responsibility for the death of Child Boy, who was appointed callum by the police who investigated his death in 1998.
His body was found by a dog Walker near the world -themed park of Gulliver WarringtonCheshire, March 14, 1998.
The 55 -year -old, at 28 at the time of the newborn death, was found only more than two decades later, through the DNA checks after the arrest of the other child.
Initially she was arrested for murder, but later admitted that she killed the child as she suffered from postnatal depression after the birth of her first child in 1996.
The mother described her arrest in 2023 as a “relief”, telling investigators: “It is not easy to live with all that time. I thought it would happen, you will not go away with anything forever”.
On Friday, Sharkey sat trembling with emotion and drying tears while he was given a prison sentence suspended by two years at the Liverpool Crown Court. The accused’s family in the public gallery broke into tears and exchanged hugs.
Passing the sentence, Mrs. Justice Eady told Sharkey to accept that her mental state at the time had “substantially compromised your ability to form rational judgments” and had since been “persecuted” by what she had done.
In deciding against an immediate prison sentence for the defendant, the judge concluded: “I am clear that you underwent a long postnatal depression.
“The events that lead us to this court are both terrible and tragic. Nothing I can do or say can bring the clock to resolve the tragedy of this case.
“You lived isolated with this terrible and tragic knowledge. You had brought him with you all the time, to think about it every day.
“I am satisfied that your crime has not been planned or premeditated.
“I am satisfied that this very sad case requires compassion. No useful purpose would have been achieved by immediate captivity.”
Sharkey was given a prison sentence of two years for manslaughter and six months for the crime of concealment of the birth of a child, to run competitor and both suspended for two years.
The accusation lawyer Jonas Hankin Kc told a previous hearing that psychiatrists agreed that Sharkey “is afraid of becoming the mother of another child” and developed a depressive disease that “substantially compromised (she) to form a rational judgment and exercise self -control”. Sharkey, a West Lancashire Council housing performance officer when Callum was born, also found the combination of full -time job and demanding motherhood.
On March 12, 1998, a man saw a young woman who rapidly walked out of the woods who seemed “upset”. The man entered the woods near the world of Gulliver and saw a black basket lying on the ground to the left of the track but did not touch him.
Two days later a dog Walker saw the same bag, he was curious to know what was inside and allowed him with a stick to find the body of a child inside.
The child, to whom the name Callum was given after the Calands Warrington district in which his body had been discovered, was brought to the Warrington General Hospital, where a pathologist found a “child normally developed, in the entire end” without structural anomaly or natural disease.
He found a number of bruises on the face, head and neck of the child and fabric bats in the mouth.
DNA profiles from the tissue paper and the coloring of the blood on the basket of the basket were taken and kept on a national database.
The police carried out checks with hospitals, general study, midwife and other medical structures, conducted visits to the house and asked questions at shops, pubs and three local schools.
It was not until 2023, during a periodic revision of the national database, that the profile of Matthew Sharkey’s DNA, the first son of Joanne Sharkey, whose DNA had been loaded at that time was loaded in the DNA national database because it had been arrested for an unrelated crime, a close combination was found.
The Court felt that the DNA champions were taken by Joanne and Neil Sharkey, who were identified as biological parents, and Sharkey was arrested for murder in July 2023, telling officers to his husband “knows nothing about it”.
While on the back of a police car before being interviewed, a secret recording was made between a conversation between them during which Mrs. Sharkey was heard to say: I will not deny anything, it is what it is, it is not true. I did f ******. “.
He later told the police that he had maintained pregnancy a secret by wearing bigger clothes and keeping everyone “in the long term”.
Sharkey told the officers that the work, he thought had happened in the bathroom, was “easy and fast” and was the only person at home at that moment.
He said to the police: “In a certain sense I lengthened the hand. I have to have been on the floor at this point. I covered my nose, the mouth. He could not make that noise, just to be silent.”
Sharkey replied “no comments” when he was asked about fabric and bruise bouties towards the head and neck of the child.
Then he led to Warrington to dispose of the child.
Later he said to the investigators: “It’s disturbing, something you think every day. You try to push him out but insinuate himself.”
The court felt that two doctors gave the medical cause of the child’s death as “not ascertained” and was unable to determine if it had been alive when the fabric was put in the mouth.
Following the sentence, the investigative inspector Hannah, he said: “I would like to thank the officers and the staff involved during this investigation again, whether this was in 1998, or more recently, whose dedication meant that someone was brought before the courts to be considered responsible for the premature death of a child.
“While the condemnation hearing today marks the end of these procedures, we will continue to remember Callum, as well as all those who have been affected by this tragic case.”
