More than two thirds of ECHO readers believe baby April’s mum should have been jailed for abandoning her newborn child in a Southport amusement arcade toilet.
An ECHO poll concluded 69% of readers think Nichola Glover, 30, of Hughes Avenue, Prescot, should have been given an immediate jail term – 31% believed the judge was right to give her a suspended sentence.
Glover hid the newborn in the disabled toilet at Silcock’s arcade after suddenly and unexpectedly going into labour on a day out in April.
Judge Alan Conrad, QC, yesterday sentenced Glover to eight months in prison, suspended for 18 months. Glover pleaded guilty to child cruelty.
He said: “Abandoning baby April in the way you did exposed her to the gravest risk.”
Alison Mutch, deputy chief crown prosecutor for Merseyside and Cheshire, said: “It has been important to strike a balance between prosecuting Ms Glover but also showing compassion and we feel that very difficult balance has been struck.
“She will no doubt regret the actions of that day for many years to come.”
A psychiatrist’s report said Glover was overwhelmed with auditory hallucinations – false perceptions of sound – after the birth, which drove her to abandon the child.
Baby April, and Glover’s other children, are now in care.
Source: http://www.liverpoolecho.co.uk/