Joanne Sharkey: Mother spared prison over death of newborn son found in bin bags in woodland in 1998

A mother has been given a two-year prison sentence, suspended for two years, over the death of her baby 27 years ago.

Warning: This article contains details that some readers might find distressing.

Joanne Sharkey, 55, pleaded guilty to manslaughter through diminished responsibility at Liverpool Crown Court last month.

Her newborn baby boy was found in bin bags by a dog walker and his son in March 1998 in a wooded area in the Callands district of Warrington.

Sharkey, from Liverpool, also pleaded guilty to endeavouring to conceal the birth of a child.

She was today given a two-year prison sentence, suspended for two years, for manslaughter through diminished responsibility and a six-month suspended sentence for the second charge, to be served concurrently.

"The events that bring us to this court are both terrible and tragic," Mrs Justice Eady told her. "Nothing I can do or say can turn the clock back to resolve the tragedy of this case.

"You lived isolated with this terrible and tragic knowledge. You had carried this with you the whole time, thinking about it every day."

"I'm satisfied that this very sad case calls for compassion," the judge continued. "No useful purpose would be achieved by immediate imprisonment."

Sharkey shook with emotion and wiped away tears as the sentence was handed down. Her family broke down in tears and exchanged hugs in the public gallery.

The baby, named Baby Callum by authorities, had been discarded inside two knotted bin bags with wads of tissue inside his mouth and throat.

He was discovered after the dog walker became curious as to what was in the bags and poked a hole in them with a stick.

A paediatrician happened to be present in the nearby Gulliver's World theme park and confirmed the body to be a deceased baby boy. The baby was pronounced dead around 45 minutes after he was discovered.

Baby Callum was estimated to have been born at full term within a few days of his discovery, but at the time, his identity and that of his parents were unknown.

But after a regular review of cold cases in January 2022, police identified Sharkey through DNA analysis via the identification of a familial link between the baby and somebody who was related to him, who had been added to the police DNA database in the years since the death.

Sharkey, who was aged 28 at the time of Callum's death, was initially arrested for murder but later admitted she killed the baby while suffering from postnatal depression after the birth of her first son in 1996.

Handing down the sentence, the judge told Sharkey she accepted her mental state had "substantially impaired your ability to form rational judgments" and that she has since been "haunted" by what she had done.

"A suspended sentence is still a sentence of imprisonment and amounts to a punishment for your crimes," she added.

(c) Sky News 2025: Joanne Sharkey: Mother spared prison over death of newborn son found in bin bags in woodla