A woman who killed her newborn baby 27 years ago has walked free from court.
Joanne Sharkey, 55, admitted a charge of manslaughter on grounds of diminished responsibility after being arrested over a breakthrough in the original case.
The body of the days-old infant was found wrapped in bin bags in woodland close to Gulliver’s World theme park in March 1998 sparking a nationwide hunt for the mother.
But detectives were unable to identify the parent of the infant, who was named Baby Callum by police, until a routine cold case review unearthed Sharkey’s link to him.
DNA from her firstborn son Matthew was revealed to be a close match when it was uploaded to a national database over an unrelated offence years earlier.
Sharkey, from Croxeth, was arrested in 2023 over the secret she had concealed from everyone including her own family for a quarter of a century at that time.
The former council officer, who was 28 at the time of the death, returned to Liverpool Crown Court on Friday but was spared jail with a suspended two-year sentence.
Explaining the ruling, Mrs Justice Easy described the ‘highly unusual’ nature of the case meant that ‘calls for compasson’ were required rather than imprisonment.
She said: “The real question is whether appropriate punishment can only be achieved by a term of immediate custody.
“Having carefully considered this issue, I am satisfied that this very sad case calls for compassion.
“No useful purpose would be achieved by immediate imprisonment and I consider that appropriate punishment can be achieved by a custodial term that is suspended.”