Sinead Connett has been jailed for hiding the body of her baby boy, who was found in a drain three years later
A woman who dumped the body of her ‘unwanted’ baby son in a drain at her parents’ house sobbed today as she was jailed for a year.
HR executive Sinead Connett, 29, said she panicked when her baby was stillborn and disposed of his body at her parents’ home.
The youngster, called William, lay undiscovered for three years after her actions in August 2013.
It was only last year – after her parents brought in a plumber to unblock a drain at their home in Grimsby, Lincolnshire – that his body was found.
It is still not known how the baby died.
He had suffered injuries including a fractured skull, but they may have been accidentally caused when the body was being removed by a plumber investigating a drain blockage.
Connett initially told police she had been raped by a taxi driver and so had kept the pregnancy a secret in case her relationship broke down.
But she had ‘lied’ to her parents and police and the baby was in fact hers with her partner, the court heard.
Police were called after a plumber investigated a drain blockage at the family home
Connett claimed the baby had died when she secretly gave birth to her son in the bath of her home in August 2013. She then drove him to her parents’ home and lowered him into a drain.
Jeremy Evans, prosecuting at Grimsby Crown Court, said Connett’s parents, teachers Stuart and Anne Connett, had suffered problems for a number of years with the drainage for the downstairs toilet.
They called an engineer, Joe Hiatt, who accessed an outdoor drain which was hidden from the main path.
He and Mr Connett discovered the baby boy wrapped in three bin liners. Mr and Mrs Connett had no idea they were looking at their dead baby grandson, who had been dumped there by their daughter.
An investigation was immediately launched and tests showed the baby boy had died on August 6 or 7 2013. Police discovered it was Connett’s after carrying out a DNA test.
She claimed she tried to get help from her parents and drove the baby to Grimsby but ‘panicked’ when she discovered they were out and put him in the drain.
But soon her lies unravelled, and police became suspicious of her version of events.
In a further interview, Connett finally accepted that her pregnancy was not as a result of a rape and admitted she had lied.
Forensics officers at the Connetts’ home after the discovery of the baby’s body last year
Mr Evans said she was ‘shocked’ to discover that she was pregnant and thought that her partner would leave her if he found out.
He said officers interviewing Connett had found her to lack ‘remorse or concern’ about her baby son.
Jailing Connett for 12 months at Grimsby Crown Court, Judge Jeremy Richardson QC told her: ‘There is no escaping the fact that your dead son laid buried in a drain at your parents’ home for three years. You gave that infant no dignity in death whatsoever.’
Nigel Sloane, defending Connett, had told the court she was ‘utterly terrified’ of going to prison. ‘
‘This case will finish today,’ said Mr Sloane. ‘It won’t finish for her. She will have to live with this for the rest of her life. A sentence of immediate imprisonment would crush her.’
Jailing her for a year, Judge Jeremy Richardson QC said: ‘You must be punished. You must go to prison immediately.’