15 years for mother guilty of murdering baby son

Ineta Dzinguviene: At least 15 years in prison.

A mother found guilty of murdering her newborn son must serve at least 15 years in prison.

Ineta Dzinguviene, 26, appeared for sentence at the High Court in Glasgow on Thursday. She was given a life sentence with a minimum of 15 years behind bars.

She had earlier been found guilty of suffocating her baby Paulius before hiding his body in a bag behind a roll of carpet in a common stair in Fraserburgh, Aberdeenshire.

Grampian Police officers who investigated the case said the mother "showed no remorse" while the judge called it a "dreadful crime" following an 11-day trial at the High Court in Livingston.

The jury of eight women and seven men took just over an hour to find Dzinguviene guilty. They found her guilty, by majority verdict, of murdering Paulius - between two and four hours after giving birth.

On sentencing Judge Becket said: “Your victim was an innocent child, your own baby, who was no more than a few hours old when you ended his life by smothering him with cling film.

“As a newborn baby he was wholly defenceless and extremely vulnerable.  He should have been protected and nurtured by you. Instead, you killed him and the jury determined, correctly, that this was murder.

“You did this while your young daughter was listening outside the bedroom door, puzzled by the sound of a baby crying. You abandoned your baby’s body in a holdall which you secreted amongst unwanted rubbish.

“Whilst you had not been long in this country you were not unsupported.

“Your husband told the jury that he did not object to having another child and that he would have welcomed an addition to your family. You could have asked your family to look after baby Paulius or you could have sought to have him adopted.

“There is no justification at all for the dreadful crime which you committed. You gave birth and allowed your baby to feed from your breast. 

“You took him home, concealing his birth from your family. You then deliberately ended his life, for reasons which you have still not explained.”

Lithuania

Meanwhile, Lithuanian authorities have sent a European arrest warrant to Scotland over a separate alleged murder.

On April 3, 2009, in teh town of Marijampole in Lithuania, Dzinguviene gave birth to a daughter, whose fate, according to the procurator in her home country, was "unknown."  Despite friends knowing she had given birth at hospital, no-one saw the baby again.

Dzinguviene, her husband and three children then left the house in which they had stayed in to emigrate to Scotland. After they left, workmen converting the attic found a dark blue suitcase, which they threw in a skip.

On April 26 a local woman noticed the suitcase, and, deciding it was still fit for use, took it home. According to the reports, when she and her husband opened it they were overcome by "a terrible stench". Inside was the body of a tiny baby, a few days old, still in its baby clothes, stuffed in a plastic supermarket carrier bag, with a smaller bag over its head.

It was Dzinguviene's daughter whose body was stuffed in the suitcase. During the investigation, Lithuanian law enforcement officers questioned witnesses and conducted forensic examinations.

From those investigations and objects found, it was established that the death had "obviously been violent". However, until Dzinguviene is questioned in Lithuania, the factual circumstances will not be known.

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