Old Bailey: A 19-year-old north London woman who threw her new-born baby, conceived from a rape, out of a first-floor window escaped jail after it was said she had "suffered enough".

The woman, who lives with her family in the borough of Barnet, admitted infanticide before Recorder of London Michael Hyam at the Old Bailey on Tuesday.

She was sentenced to an 18-month community rehabilitation order so, the judge said, she could "put this matter entirely behind her".

One of the woman's neighbours discovered the lifeless body of a new-born baby boy in her garden on March 1 this year. The mother was later arrested and charged after she was treated at the maternity wing of Barnet Hospital.

Defending, Kim Hollis said she had been raped by a fellow student on a college trip in June last year. "She didn't understand what was happening to her," she said. "She was too ashamed and scared to tell anyone.

"It is clear that she comes from a protected family environment with both strict moral and religious codes which resulted, in this particular case, in her being unable to speak about the problems."

December 11, 2001 15:30