A HIGH Court judge may need to be drafted in to oversee the case of a baby's death.
Judge Shani Barnes, the leading judge for Sussex and the only one qualified to sit on murder trials, said she may have to refer the case of Gintare Suminaite to someone more senior because of the “seriousness of the crime”.
After addressing Brighton Crown Court yesterday, she remanded the 29-year-old mother in custody until a plea and case management hearing at the end of June.
The Lithuanian national is accused of killing her newly born daughter minutes after she was born.
An ambulance was called to the home where Suminaite lives with her English partner and four-year-old son in Aldwick Road, Bognor, at about 8.30am on Wednesday. The unnamed baby, who has no name, was pronounced dead at the scene.
Suminaite was taken to St Richard’s Hospital in Chichester for urgent medical treatment related to her as a result of having just given birth.
She was released from hospital and arrested on Friday, then charged Saturday and was remanded in custody.
A translator is relaying the proceedings to her. She has not yet entered a plea.
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