Melbourne Infanticide Plea Recognizing Maternal Depression
Case summary
In April 2016, Nikat smothered her 15-month-old daughter, Sanaya Sahib, in Melbourne and initially told police the child had been abducted before admitting responsibility. She was charged with murder, but after psychiatric evidence that she was suffering from depression consistent with a disturbed state following childbirth, prosecutors accepted a guilty plea to infanticide under Victorian law. In November 2017, Justice Lex Lasry sentenced her to a 12-month community corrections order; having already served 529 days in pre-sentence detention, she was released. Members of the child's family publicly expressed distress at the outcome. The case illustrates how Australian infanticide provisions treat maternal mental disturbance as reducing culpability.
Mental-health context
Psychiatric evidence accepted by the Victorian Supreme Court showed Nikat was suffering from depression, in the context of postnatal mental disturbance, at the time she killed her daughter, which led prosecutors to downgrade the murder charge to infanticide.
Status / outcome
Guilty plea to infanticide (2017); 12-month community corrections order after 529 days served
Sources
- https://www.abc.net.au/news/2017-11-23/sofina-nikat-avoids-jail-sentence-for-killing-daughter/9182912
- https://www.sbs.com.au/news/article/melbourne-mum-who-killed-15-month-old-daughter-released-after-sentencing/2xm0ciub3
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