A mum who murdered her newborn son by abandoning him in the woods has been jailed for life to serve a minimum of nine years.
Silipa Keresi, 38, wrapped Maliki Keresi in a towel and left him ‘exposed, defenceless and alone’ in Hythe, New Forest, Hampshire, on March 5 2020.
Winchester Crown Court heard how the defendant, from Fiji, ’tried to be a good mother for years but snapped’.
Keresi, who is married to a former Commonwealth soldier in the British Army, told jurors her life had been ‘hell for the past couple of years’.
She had tried to get an abortion in November 2019 after struggling with money housing, and applying for permission to stay in the UK.
Her family had been left homeless while living in a small hotel room, surviving on contributions from a food bank.
The court also heard she was the victim of domestic violence since 2008.
Sentencing the mother, judge Mr Justice Garnham told her: ‘Regardless of your circumstances, abandoning your baby was a truly dreadful thing to do.’
He said that Keresi had ‘poor coping strategies’ and was reluctant to seek help from the authorities as she lived in fear of deportation.
Justice Garnham added: ‘I have no doubt you feel some genuine and enduring remorse.‘I accept you acted in a way that was wholly out of character and you would not have done what you did but for the extreme nature of your personal circumstances.’
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