A mother has been sentenced to an indefinite hospital stay after killing her five-month-old child while suffering from postnatal depression and postpartum psychosis.
Hayley MacFarlane, 39, confessed infanticide after drowning her daughter Evelyn while walking in Leeds’ Woodhouse Moor Park on December 20.
MacFarlane, of Carrington Street, Barnsley, was an inpatient at a mental health facility at the time and was overtaken with thoughts of failure as a mother, Sheffield Crown Court heard.
At her sentence on Wednesday, the court told her that if it hadn’t been for her mental illness, she would not have killed her kid.
The court previously heard how MacFarlane experienced “significant change,” and how her GP and community psychiatric services “failed to recognise the level of psychosis.”
Baby Evelyn had been a “longed-for” and “very loved” daughter, according to the court, but MacFarlane’s mental condition made her believe she was harming her daughter’s growth.
MacFarlane sought care several times in the months leading up to Evelyn’s death, including a self-referral to the local mental health clinic and a voluntary admission to Fieldhead Hospital in Wakefield.
She was then transported to The Mount, a specialised mother and newborn ward in Leeds.
She was administered antipsychotic medicine and imprisoned under the Mental Health Act, with personnel observing that she gradually improved.
She was released after her Mental Health Act detention period expired 28 days later, but she stayed on the unit as a voluntary patient.
Her development was deemed so great that she was allowed to take Evelyn for an unaccompanied walk on December 20th. ‘Psychotic state’
Hours later, MacFarlane called her husband and then 999 to say she had killed Evelyn.
MacFarlane was initially charged with murder, but the prosecution accepted his guilty plea to infanticide in June.
Psychiatrists later concluded that MacFarlane killed Evelyn while “in a psychotic state” as a result of postpartum depression and psychosis.
Mrs Justice Christina Lambert issued an indefinite Section 37 hospital order and a Section 41 restriction order on Wednesday, requiring MacFarlane to be discharged from the hospital only if the secretary of state for justice agrees.
MacFarlane’s family and friends offered 28 character references, detailing her “gentle and caring” nature as well as their dismay at her mental health decline.
The Leeds and York Partnership NHS Foundation Trust, which operates The Mount in Leeds, stated that it has fully cooperated with police inquiries and has conducted an internal review.
Dr Sara Munro, the trust’s chief executive, said: “Baby Evelyn’s death was a rare and unfortunate incident, and our sympathies are with her family during this difficult time.
“We have maintained contact with Hayley’s family and we’ll be sharing the findings of our internal review with them once it’s completed.”Because this was such an unusual incidence, more independent reviews will begin shortly, with which we will, of course, fully cooperate.”
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