A teenage mother accused of murdering her baby by assaulting him and then stuffing cotton wool down his throat said “I hate the newborn cry”, a court has heard.
Warning: The following article contains details of a graphic nature
Paris Mayo, now aged 19 but who was 15 at the time of the incident, is alleged to have killed Stanley Mayo before putting him in a bin bag at her parents’ Herefordshire home on 23 March 2019.
It is claimed she concealed both her pregnancy and the birth, insisting she was unaware she was carrying.
This was despite asking her mother, just weeks before the birth, “what a half-Chinese, half-English baby would look like”, Jonas Hankin KC, prosecuting, told Worcester Crown Court on Friday.
After delivering her baby, weighing 7lb 12oz (3.56kg), unassisted at her parents’ house in Springfield Avenue, Ross-on-Wye, the prosecution allege Mayo assaulted Stanley.
The Crown have claimed the infant suffered a fractured skull, possibly caused by Mayo’s foot on his head, before she then stuffed cotton wool into his mouth – two pieces of which were found deep in his throat.
‘Crush injury’
Medical evidence from a consultant paediatrician, read to court in summary, concluded Stanley, who was full-term and lived at least two hours after birth, “may have suffered a significant crush injury to his head from opposite sides, for example, beneath her foot”, said Mr Hankin.
“There is definite evidence of at least two impacts to the head or a crush injury to the side of his head, against or between two hard, unyielding surfaces.”
Accused parents unaware of baby’s birth
Mayo, whose parents were in but upstairs and unaware of delivery at the time of the birth, was arrested and twice interviewed about her baby’s death, firstly in 2019, and then in 2021.
When told the pathologist had found cotton wool forced deeply into the baby’s throat, Mayo claimed she had noticed “fluid” or “blood” coming from the child’s mouth and was “trying to help” and soak it up, the jury heard.
Mr Hankin said she told officers: “‘I don’t remember putting five pieces in there and I didn’t shove my fingers down his throat and put them there’.”
“‘I was panicking and I just didn’t know what else to do, and that was the first thing that came into my head, but I didn’t shove them down there, I might have been panicking, but I’m not stupid… that’s not what I would have wanted’.”
Medical experts
Medical experts, following a post-mortem examination, also concluded the child had “classic signs of a live birth”, with evidence of air in its lungs, despite Mayo claiming to police that once born, her son “didn’t move, he didn’t cry, he didn’t breathe”.
Jurors also heard Stanley had air in his gut, likely “from crying”, Mr Hankin said.
The prosecutor told the court: “Following the defendant’s arrest, a police officer overheard Mayo say, having heard a newborn baby crying at [Hereford County] Hospital – ‘I hate the newborn cry’.
“The defendant later told police she couldn’t remember saying that and didn’t remember hearing a baby cry.”
Defendant changed story, jury told
She also claimed the child had been “cold” from the moment of delivery but jurors heard she changed her story in a police interview when told of medical evidence that even stillborn children were “warm to the touch”, Mr Hankin said.
‘I didn’t want anyone to throw him away’
Jurors also heard Mayo denied putting her son in a black bin bag, in a bid to conceal the child’s birth.
She told police: “I didn’t want anyone to throw him away, I just wanted someone else to deal with it.”
Mayo, of Ruardean, Gloucestershire, denies murder and the trial is expected to last six weeks.
