During the trial, jurors heard Paris Mayo was used to being around children and had trained in childcare
By Vanessa Pearce & Nicola Goodwin
BBC News, West Midlands
A 19-year-old who murdered her newborn son hours after giving birth has been jailed for at least 12 years.
A trial heard Paris Mayo, then 15, suffocated the boy, Stanley, by stuffing cotton wool into his mouth and throat.
Mayo delivered him alone at her family home in Ross-on-Wye, in March 2019, while her parents were upstairs.
“Killing your baby son was a truly dreadful thing to do,” said the judge, Mr Justice Garnham, passing sentence.
Warning: This article contains distressing content.
The trial heard she had assaulted Stanley, leaving him with injuries comparable to those seen in a car crash.
“How you did this is not clear, but I suspect you crushed his head, probably beneath your foot,” the judge told Mayo.
Her initial assault caused him “serious damage”, but did not kill him, the judge added.
“He remained alive. You decided you had to finish Stanley off by stuffing cotton wool balls into his throat.”
The newborn was found by Mayo’s mother the day after his birth, dumped in a bin bag left on the doorstep.
It was her who alerted emergency services in an emotional 999 call played to the jury.
Image source, Facebook
Mayo gave birth alone at the family home on 23 March 2019
Mayo had claimed she did not know she was pregnant, also telling the court of her difficult family life and her father who had made her feel “worthless”.
In her testimony she described how she started having sex at 13 and used it as a way to get people to like her, because she was “insecure” due to her family situation.
The court heard her father Patrick Mayo had been upstairs on dialysis treatment with Mayo’s mother at the time of Stanley’s birth.
“A human being is probably never more vulnerable than at the time of their birth,” Mr Justice Garnham said during sentencing.
“You had decided you could no longer allow him to live,” he said.
“You did nothing to prepare yourself for giving birth. You were frightened and traumatised by this event.
“I have no doubt it was painful and overwhelming for you.”
‘Isolating and frightening’
Defence barrister Bernard Richmond KC described Mayo as a “pathetic and vulnerable individual” who had not been supported by people around her.
“When faced with a decision she had to make, she did not face up to it. By the time she had to, the decision she made was woefully, woefully wrong,” he said.
“This will, in every sense of the word, be a life sentence. It will be a lonely, isolating and frightening time for her.”
The jury were given the option to consider an alternative verdict of infanticide if they believed she killed Stanley while the balance of her mind was disturbed.
Image source, West Mercia Police
Mayo’s trial was told she had a difficult family life and started having sex at 13 so people would like her
However, Mayo, of Ruardean in Gloucestershire, cried in the dock on Friday as jurors delivered a majority guilty verdict on the charge of murder.
A spokesperson for the Crown Prosecution Service said the case had been both “tragic and complex”.
Stanley’s “short life was filled with pain and suffering when he should have been nurtured and loved”.
“[Mayo] chose to hide her pregnancy, give birth alone and kill her baby, then hide his body, despite accepting that she had a family who would have supported her.”
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