Woman jailed for hiding her baby's remains wrapped in bin bag in drain outside her parent's house

Sinead Connett, 29, drove from Hertfordshire with the body in the boot in August 2013, and hid it while her parents were away on holiday.

She told “numerous” lies, keeping her partner and family, in the dark. The remains, wrapped in bin bags, only came to light in 2016 when an engineer was trying to unblock the drains.

Connett’s father opened the bags to reveal the top of the baby’s head, and summoned his wife, neither of whom realised they were looking at the body of their baby grandson.

According to the Crown Prosecution Service, her mother texted her shortly after the grim discovery: “As long as it has nothing to do with either (her son) or you I’ll be finexxx.”

She replied: “It won’t be! They will get to the bottom of it soon enough. Just hard having to wait xx.”

The baby’s skull was fractured. But it was impossible to determine whether this had happened before or after death.

Connett, from Grimsby, did not admit to being the mother until she was told DNA taken from blood staining on a towel the baby was wrapped in matched hers.

She told police initially she had been raped by a taxi driver after a works night out in October 2012 and said the baby was unresponsive when born.

However, police found text messages which suggested she had made excuses to colleagues and on the night in question met up with her mother instead.

She admitted concealing the birth of a child earlier this year.

Speaking after the hearing at Grimsby Crown Court, CPS barrister Jeremy Evans said: “This defendant told numerous lies in an effort to conceal her pregnancy, and she told lies to the police, initially claiming she had been raped.

“Only when confronted with clear evidence of her lies did she confess that this was untrue.

“Her hugely irresponsible and callous actions have triggered a very long and expensive police investigation, and she only admitted her guilt at a very late stage in the proceedings.”