Teen mum Paris Mayo moaned ‘I hate the newborn cry’ after she was arrested for ‘choking baby to death with cotton wool’
A TEEN mum said she hated the “newborn cry” after she was arrested for choking her baby to death with cotton wool, a court heard today.
Paris Mayo, then aged 15, was heard making the comment at hospital by a police officer, it is said.
It came after she allegedly murdered her newborn baby boy when she “unexpectedly” went into labour in the living room of her family home in Ross-on-Wye, Herefordshire.
Mayo is accused of assaulting the baby, named Stanley, by possibly using her foot to fracture his skull.
She then stuffed cotton wool balls into his throat to suffocate him, Worcester Crown Court heard.
Jonas Hankin KC “Following the defendant’s arrest, a police officer overheard Mayo say, having heard a new-born baby crying at (Hereford County) Hospital – ‘I hate the new-born cry’.
“The defendant later told police she couldn’t remember saying that and didn’t remember hearing a baby cry.”
Mayo had taken a warm bath believing she had period pains when she “suddenly” gave birth to Stanley as her mum tended to her sick dad upstairs.
Jurors heard she later messaged her older brother, saying: “When you go outside, can you put the black bag in the bin, it’s just full of sick from last night, please”.
But when Mayo’s mum looked inside, she screamed out hysterically “there’s a baby in the bag”, it was said.
Emergency crews were called, with the mum heard telling her young daughter: “You could have told me, darling. Poor baby. Why didn’t you tell me?”
Paramedics arrived and found Mayo in the house sitting with her mum, holding the baby who was “wrapped in a sheet” and showed no signs of life.
Jurors heard the teen said she didn’t know she was pregnant and the baby had “all of a sudden just popped out”.
She had hoped her mum would think the newborn was “rubbish” and “throw it out”, it was said.
Mayo was later heard asking “Is it my fault? Did I do this?”, and later “It’s my fault, it’s my fault” as the family travelled to hospital.
The court was told baby Stanley was born full-term or nearly full-term on the night of March 23, 2019.
A post mortem found he suffocated after a piece of cotton wool blocked his oesophagus.
The material had been forced so deeply down his neck that it was only discovered at autopsy.
Medics also found Stanley” may have suffered a significant crush injury to his head from opposite sides, for example, beneath her foot”, the court was told.
He had two large, complex fractures to either side of the skull, as a result of inflicted and “non-accidental” injury, caused by “blunt-force trauma”, doctors concluded.
The court was told a consultant neonatologist found that with “timely medical intervention…he would have been expected to survive”.
Mayo claims the baby was not moving or breathing after she gave birth and she used cotton wool to clean up “stuff” coming out of its mouth.
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.”
Mayo, of Ruardean, Gloucestershire, denies murder.
The trial continues.