TELL NO ONE

Thirty infants a year are killed in Britain, mostly by their mothers. These women often conceal their pregnancies and give birth alone in their bedrooms or in semi-public settings such as a college bathroom or a hotel.

They do so for a variety of reasons. Sometimes the baby is the result of an affair which they've had whilst their husband was working away from home, and to admit to the pregnancy will end the marriage. In other instances, the girl is single and from a religious family which opposes pre-marital sex. Women with a previous history of mental illness are more likely to panic when they find out that they are expecting an unplanned and unwanted baby, as are those who are already under stress from existing life events.

The stereotype is of a teenage – or even younger – girl who has little understanding of biology, but many mothers who kill their children at birth are in their late teens or early twenties. They tend to be passive individuals with a desperate need to appear perfect to their parents and friends.

Though impoverished, uneducated girls are the most likely to give birth in secret and dispose of their babies immediately afterwards, it's not unusual for high school pupils and university students to do likewise, preferring the extended pain of a medication-free birth to admitting the impending arrival of an illegitimate child.

If a mother murders her baby in its first 24 hours, the crime is neonaticide. In reality, most of these women snuff out the baby's life – usually by strangulation or suffocation – when it gives its first cry. Others abandon the infant in a dustbin or under a bush in the park so that it dies of exposure. In America, such infants are often disposed of down the garbage chute. Some American prosecutors make no allowance for the new mother's state of mind, so girls who kill their newborns can be given lengthy sentences for murder in the US.

The Infanticide Act, passed in Britain in 1922, recognises that childbirth and lactation can cause enormous hormonal shifts which result in temporary mental illness and can cause a mother to kill her baby. (The act isn't applicable in Scotland, but Scottish judges tend to sentence along similar compassionate lines.) As such, women who commit neonaticide in the United Kingdom face, at worst, the charge of manslaughter.

The case which follows, that of British mother Caroline Beale, made headlines throughout the world when she secretly gave birth during a holiday in the United States and was caught attempting to take her dead baby back into Britain. The American legal system demanded a 25-year sentence whilst British authorities pleaded for clemency given her obvious fragility and confused state of mind.

CAROLINE ANN BEALE

Unlike many women who are charged with neonaticide, Caroline – born in June 1964 – was from a good, loving family. She left school at 16 and went to college where she did a course in community care. Attractive and well liked, she went on to work in health administration and, at 22, began dating Paul Faraway, the son of a teacher and a judge's clerk, who made sporting rifles for a gunsmith. The following year they set up home together in Essex and got engaged.

Throughout the rest of the 1980s and the early 1990s, the couple's lives were comparatively uncomplicated. But, in the summer of 1993, Caroline's best friend Alison had a recurrence of the cancer which she'd been treated for in 1991. She began to feel tired all the time and didn't respond to chemotherapy. Later, surgeons had to remove her ovaries.

In March 1994, Caroline realised that she was pregnant (she'd conceived in January) but didn't tell anyone and tried to put it to the back of her mind. She knew that Alison had wanted children but could no longer have them, so perhaps on a subconscious level she didn't want to upset her ailing friend. She continued to visit Alison in hospital, though she sometimes had to cut the visits short as she was deeply distraught at how badly illness had ravaged her.

Caroline could see that her friend wasn't going to get better – but Alison didn't realise this and still made plans for the future. But by May 1994, she was so ill that she was moved to a hospice, where she lost her sight. Caroline continued to visit her friend, though it was harrowing to see the previously vibrant clothes designer lying motionless and unable to recognise anyone. The following month, Alison died aged 31.

Caroline was overwhelmed by the death, and had crying jags which lasted for hours at a time. This went on for week after week. She began to sleep for 11 hours at a stretch, a common symptom of clinical depression. Her employers were so concerned that they offered her compassionate leave.

Her boyfriend arranged for her to accompany him and his brothers on holiday to America, but in the weeks leading up to the trip Caroline continued to behave oddly, sleeping for long periods, eating more than usual and looking despondent. No one knew that by now she was almost nine months pregnant as she wore layers of baggy clothes. She later said that she'd had a dream in which Alison said that she was lonely and wanted the baby for company, and this convinced Caroline that the baby would be born dead. Her relationship with Paul was going through a difficult period and they had stopped having sex so she was able to hide the fact that her previously flat stomach was now heavy and round.

A LONELY LABOUR

On their arrival in New York on 14 September, Caroline was again tired and moody. Paul's brothers kept asking her what was wrong but she repeatedly insisted that she was fine and they understandably assumed that she was still recovering from her bereavement. She spent much of their sightseeing visits staring unfocusedly into the distance and was always keen to return to their Manhattan hotel. Paul told her that it was time she got over Alison's death, but when she remained unenthusiastic about touring the city, he decided to give her some space and increasingly went out, leaving her watching TV in their room.

At 5pm on 22 September, Caroline went into labour after encouraging the men to go out for the evening. She spent the next six hours in agony, then gave birth in the bath where, at one stage, she possibly passed out. She cut the...