A woman who killed her newborn baby 27 years ago while she had severe postnatal depression has been handed a suspended prison sentence, as a judge said the case “calls for compassion”.
Joanne Sharkey, 55, admitted manslaughter on the grounds of diminished responsibility over the death of her days-old son, whose body was found wrapped in bin bags in woodland in 1998.
The discovery sparked a nationwide hunt for the mother of the infant, whom police called Baby Callum, but the search ended when no one came forward.
Then, in 2023, detectives made a breakthrough when a routine cold case review found that the DNA of Sharkey’s firstborn son, Matthew, was a close match to that of Baby Callum. His DNA had been uploaded to the national database when he was arrested for an unrelated offence years earlier.
Sharkey, a former council officer from Liverpool, was then tracked down by police and arrested on suspicion of murder. She had kept the baby’s birth secret from everyone, including her family.
Sentencing Sharkey at Liverpool crown court on Friday, Judge Eady said the case was “both terrible and tragic”.
Sparing the defendant jail, Eady said this “highly unusual” case raised the real question of whether “appropriate punishment can only be achieved with immediate custody”. The judge said: “This very sad case calls for compassion. No useful purpose would be achieved by immediate imprisonment.”
Sharkey shook and sobbed in the dock, while her husband, Neil, and their son, Matthew, wept in the public gallery as she was told she would not be jailed.
Eady said the defendant’s judgment had been “significantly impaired” by the severe undiagnosed postnatal depression she was suffering at the time, following the birth of her first son Matthew in July 1996.
Sharkey, then 28, kept her second pregnancy a secret and gave birth alone at home. She suffocated the newborn by stuffing tissue paper in his mouth then wrapping his body in bin bags, the court heard. She disposed of her baby boy near Gulliver’s World theme park, in Cheshire, where he was discovered days later.
Jonas Hankin KC, prosecuting, said the defendant had expressed “feelings of guilt and a sense of relief” when she was arrested, adding that she had thought about telling someone “a million times – but how would you say it?”
In police interviews, Sharkey said: “I couldn’t actually say the words. It’s not easy to live with all that time. I thought this would happen. You don’t get away with anything for ever.” She added: “It’s haunting. Something you think about every day. You try and push it out but it creeps back in.”
Sharkey’s husband and their son gave emotional witness statements in support of Sharkey, describing her as “an amazing mother” who was “remorseful and accepting of any punishment the courts deem suitable”.
The court was told that Sharkey would have been jailed for life and ordered to serve a minimum of 17 to 20 years in prison had she not been suffering mental illness at the time. The prosecution had sought a sentence of between seven and 12 years.
Sentencing Sharkey to two years in prison, suspended for two years, the judge said the defendant’s mental state at the time was “not a case of the baby blues, but a far more sustained period of depression which impacted on you physically and mentally”. She said she had no doubt that Sharkey’s symptoms would have been viewed as requiring urgent medical attention had she sought help at the time.
A psychiatrist described Sharkey’s account of her secret birth as “an experience of de-realisation”, an intense dissociative experience whereby the sufferer perceives the world as unreal. This account was consistent with Sharkey’s recollection of the event, Eady said.
The judge said it was accepted that the defendant’s mental state “substantially impaired your ability to form rational judgment or exercise self-control” and that this had continued after she disposed of her baby’s body.
The court heard that Sharkey had suffered from low mood, anxiety and a personality disorder in the two decades since.
The judge said Sharkey’s legal responsibility was “diminished, not extinguished” by her mental state and accepted that she was “genuinely remorseful”. She added: “You lived isolated with this terrible and tragic knowledge for a quarter of a century.”
Outside court, Det Insp Hannah Friend said the “really tragic” case highlighted the importance of postnatal support. Friend, the head of Cheshire constabulary’s major crime review team, said she hoped the family could now “draw a line under this horrendous matter and that it can bring some peace to people who have been waiting such a long time for answers”.
