Leeds Mother Detained Indefinitely After Infanticide Plea
Case summary
On December 20, 2023, MacFarlane, from Barnsley, left a Christmas party at the Leeds mental health unit where she was being treated and smothered her five-month-old daughter Evelyn at Woodhouse Moor park. She telephoned her husband to tell him Evelyn was 'gone', then called 999 and told police what she had done. She pleaded guilty to infanticide, and on July 17, 2024, Leeds Crown Court made an indefinite hospital order. In sentencing remarks published by the judiciary, the judge said: 'I am satisfied that but for your condition of post-partum psychosis and your depression, you would not have harmed your baby.' The case is a clear illustration of the Infanticide Act 1938 route that England and Wales uses in place of a murder prosecution.
Mental-health context
The Crown accepted her plea on the basis of psychiatric evidence that she was suffering from postpartum psychosis and depression caused by childbirth. Her primary diagnosis was postpartum psychosis, characterised by delusional and obsessive beliefs that she was not a good mother and was harming her daughter. She was an inpatient at a Leeds mental health unit at the time of the offence.
Status / outcome
Guilty plea to infanticide; indefinite hospital order (July 2024)
Sources
- https://www.judiciary.uk/wp-content/uploads/2024/07/The-King-v-MacFarlane-Sentencing-Remarks-17.07.24-Final.pdf
- https://www.itv.com/news/calendar/2024-07-17/mother-who-smothered-baby-daughter-in-park-detained-in-hospital
- https://www.examinerlive.co.uk/news/local-news/severely-depressed-mum-hayley-macfarlane-29556954
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