‘Calculating’ mother jailed for abortion

Published on 18/09/2012 00:00

A “COLD and calculating” mother has been jailed for eight years after robbing her unborn baby boy of his chance of life when she aborted him within a week of his due date.

Sarah Catt, who was married but had been having an affair for seven years, was about 40 weeks pregnant when she took drugs she had bought on the internet to induce her labour.

She claimed the baby was stillborn and that she buried his body, but she has since refused to tell anyone where to find her son.

Catt, who showed no emotion during the hour-long sentencing yesterday, was described as “cold and calculating” by police, who searched her home with dogs and specialist equipment to try to find the child’s body.

Mr Justice Cooke said the seriousness of the crime lay between manslaughter and murder.

He said she would have been charged with murder if the baby had been born a few days later and she had then killed him.

“The child in the womb was so near to birth that, in my judgment, all right-thinking people would consider this offence more serious than manslaughter or any offence on the calendar other than murder,” he said.

“What you did was end the life of a child that was capable of being born alive, by inducing birth or miscarriage.”

He added: “What you have done is rob an apparently healthy child, vulnerable and defenceless, of the life which he was about to commence.”

Mr Justice Cooke said Catt had ended the pregnancy with full knowledge of her due date and of the abortion law.

He said: “This was a cold, calculated decision that you took for your own convenience and in your self-interest alone.”

Catt, 35, from Sherburn-in-Elmet, North Yorkshire, had previously given a baby up for adoption and terminated a pregnancy with the agreement of her husband.

She pleaded guilty earlier this year to a charge of administering a poison with intent to procure a miscarriage.