The judges sided with the mother who drowned the baby in the toilet: responsibility for the murder must also be borne by the state

“A State that has not complied with its legal obligation cannot punish a convicted person who is in a difficult situation but who has committed a very serious crime with the most severe prison sentence, which will only achieve one: the objective of punishment, It not only affects the convicted person, the remaining children, ”said the judges of the Lithuanian Court of Appeal, who examined the criminal case in private hearings.

According to them, the 38-year-old woman, who has already given birth to three children, “did not want a fourth child due to difficult circumstances, her lack of maturity of personality, complicated relationship with a partner and she said it clearly” – she sought medical help to abort. it was 13 weeks and it was no longer possible to finish it.

The pregnant woman underwent tests, but she did not perform them and she went to the gynecologist a month and a half later, the woman was convinced that the baby was no longer alive.

But he was alive.

“The nurse said at the court hearing that when the mother visited her for the second time and discovered that the child was developing (being healthy), she was sad and crying,” the court stressed. – These data allow the panel of judges to see the insufficient attention of medical, state and municipal employees to the clear social, psychological, etc. a needy pregnant woman and her family, who had three more children. The medical personnel saw and understood that the woman did not want to give birth, had psychological and other social problems, but did not provide or refer to specialists, psychologists or relevant public organizations to provide such assistance, nor did they inform the relevant state institutions and the child protection services on family and child problems. therefore, she did not pay due attention to the situation. “

The judges did not agree with the statement of the doctor who supervised the mother who was expecting a fourth baby that “there is no system in Lithuania to send women who want to terminate a pregnancy to a psychologist.”

“In accordance with the provisions of the Law of the Framework for the Protection of Children’s Rights, social workers, having received information from health institutions or other institutions on the need for family support, provide these families with information and advice on how to obtain the help they need (including psychological support), “the panel said. – Therefore, these provisions oblige health professionals to inform social workers about emerging threats in the family. If it had been a concern in good faith, the very serious consequences of the present case could have been avoided by providing all the aid ”.

The judges of the Criminal Chamber Virginija Liudvinavičienė, Ernestas Rimšelis and Algimantas Valantinas handed down an extraordinary sentence in a criminal case. the woman convicted of the murder was not even sentenced to prison.

“In the opinion of the panel of judges, the purpose of the sanction, even in the case of a very serious crime, is not achieved only with prison,” the judges pointed out in the sentence that came into effect from the moment of pronouncement. – A systematic interpretation of the provisions of the Criminal Code highlights the need for responsibility and extreme caution when imposing severe custodial sentences on people who have not been previously convicted. The restriction of liberty makes it possible to control the behavior of offenders in liberty in a much more productive way, without destroying their social and economic ties, reducing the probability of recidivism. The system of relevant provisions of the Criminal Law for the application of criminal responsibility guides the court, considering the dangerousness of the personality, the personal characteristics of the convicted person, the need for re-socialization, consider limiting it to alternative legal means and use the privative penalty of real freedom only as a last resort. “

The panel of judges sentenced the mother to a statutory maximum penalty of two years in prison, along with “specific and personality-oriented prohibitions and obligations”: participating in a behavior correction program, psychological counseling, work or registration in the Employment Service throughout the prison period, also from 10 to 6 pm be at home. In addition, the convicted person will be required to work 200 hours without pay during the first six months of deprivation of liberty. in health, care and welfare institutions or non-governmental organizations that care for the disabled, the elderly or other people in need of assistance.

According to the judges, these obligations must properly implement the purpose of the punishment provided by law, adequately affect the mother who killed the newborn and guarantee real opportunities for her to recover.

The girl was not expected

This story became clear already in 2018. at the beginning of August, when from Karaliaučiaus st. a woman bleeding in very serious condition was taken to the hospital by ambulance from the apartment building where she lived. She told doctors that she had undergone a criminal abortion a week ago, that a “family doctor” who had removed the fetus left parts of the placenta in her uterus, leading to uterine inflammation, sepsis and anemia.

After several days of intensive treatment, the patient’s condition improved and doctors told police officers that the woman had recently given birth to a baby.

Realizing that no one believed the abortion story anymore, the woman admitted that she had given birth to a baby in the apartment’s bathroom and later got rid of it.

Both at the start of the investigation and in court, the mother-of-three said she went to the bathroom early in labor, gave birth to the girl here and then dipped her head into the outlet of the toilet bowl. When the baby no longer showed signs of life, the woman wrapped him in a towel, took him to the bathroom and hid him under the bathtub.

At that time, both the mother’s partner and other relatives were at home, but they did not notice anything suspicious; the woman showed problems “due to women’s issues.” And that same night, the woman who had put the body of the newborn in a bag took it to the basement of the apartment building and hid it here. He was able to stay here for about a week before the woman concealed her whereabouts at the hospital from police officers.

In January this year, the Vilnius Regional Court ruled that the mother who had given birth to a newborn would have to serve the 8-year prison sentence that was imposed on her at the Panevėžys Correctional Center. The prosecutor proposed the same punishment.

According to the court, the children of a woman convicted of intentional murder will be able to properly care for the state.

However, the convict did not agree to the severe prison sentence: after appealing the sentence to the Lithuanian Court of Appeal, the woman asked for clemency and not be sent to prison.

Children would be the most affected

After analyzing the data from the criminal case, the judges pointed out that only the convict is raising three children, one of whom is already an adult: On the contrary, the family nurse described the convict as a very loving mother, noting that her children were especially cared for, educated, very good children. The fact that the eldest son, who was a minor at the time of the crime, is responsible shows that he, after graduating from school, realizes the difficult economic situation at home, works, helps materially to his mother, brother and sister. The prisoner and the children live alone. “

“The best thing is for the children to return to their families,” said the staff of the capital’s social support center, which interacted with the children of the convict after the murder of the newborn. According to specialists, “the adolescent son is the one who survives the longest because of the situation, he cried the first day”, at that time his little sister, barely six years old, still did not understand much …

“The eldest son leaves in the morning, comes back in the afternoon, works, the child is in charge,” the specialists told the children while their mother was being treated at the hospital.

The judges agreed that the imprisonment of the mother would affect her children more, since the United Nations Convention on the Rights of the Child establishes that “any action that affects a child, whether by public or private social security, courts, administrations or legislators the best interests of the child and their right to preserve family ties “.

Help was and still is needed

Currently, children are cared for only by the mother, as the children’s parents live separately and do not maintain closer ties with the family.

“These circumstances clearly confirm that even a short separation from the children’s mother (especially the six-year-old daughter) will have irreversible consequences for their emotional well-being, psychological behavior,” the appeals court judges stressed.

According to them, the mother of the fourth child got rid to avoid additional difficulties: home, material, communication with a partner, who did not contribute to the maintenance of the family and spent all the money received on alcohol.

“The act of forensic psychiatry and forensic psychology confirms the extremely difficult living conditions of the convict: she was left in the hospital as a newborn, she does not know her father, she has 12 or 14 siblings, she grew up partly in a nursing home, in part with his grandmother, studied in a vocational school, did not graduate, because she got pregnant, said the court – Growing up with my grandmother, I lived in an antisocial environment, I saw drunk people. The convict grew up abandoned by his parents, he did not see The example of a harmonious family, lacked a stable emotional connection with relatives, and from childhood did not have an environment that allowed him to develop an adequate understanding of relatives, the ability to seek and find a way out of difficult situations. Psychological studies have shown that the personality is primitive, lacking in maturity, the emotions are quite superficial, immature. These established circumstances undoubtedly lead to the conclusion that the convict himself needed and needs specialized assistance. This is confirmed by the recommendations included in the conclusion of the Social Survey of the case ”.

Without imprisoning the mother who killed the child, the appeal court pointed out that one of the purposes of the punishment is to detain the person from committing crimes, depriving the convicted person of the opportunity to commit new crimes.

“Obviously, this objective can be achieved without isolating the convicted person from children and society; it has not been determined that he is prone to violence or other crimes,” the court stressed that after the birth of a fourth child, women no longer they have the opportunity to conceive or give birth.