Legal News
Suspended sentence for mother who abandoned newborn (23 September 2015)
Date: 23/09/2015
A woman who abandoned her newborn baby at the front door of a block of flats in County Durham has been given a suspended sentence at Peterlee Magistrates’ Court.
At a previous hearing, Leigh Anne Varley, 36, of Horden pleaded guilty to having wilfully ill-treated, neglected, abandoned or exposed a child in a manner to cause unnecessary suffering or injury to health.
Mrs Varley was traced by police officers after her baby was discovered in the doorway in May. The court heard that she had abandoned the child after becoming pregnant without the knowledge of her husband and had feared his reaction to her pregnancy.
The court sentenced Varley to 14 weeks in jail, suspended for 12 months.
After sentencing,A CPS spokesperson said:
“Mrs Varley took the desperate step of abandoning her child in the hours after it was born that was motivated primarily by fear of a violent reprisal from her own husband, who was wholly unaware of the pregnancy.”
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